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Controversiality In Othello

Decent Essays

Controversiality is something that Shakespeare has conquered in all of his plays. Most of these controversial things have to women and the treatment of them. Some of the biggest ones are King Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. These plays show how Shakespeare portrays women. Women are an essential part of everyone’s lives because they are the ones that give birth to the people of this world. In these three plays especially it is told how women were treated back then. These plays have a variety of stories, but really they are the same plot line with different characters. Women are treated in these plays like they were treated in the Elizabethan Era, which wasn’t good. They couldn’t talk unless they were talked to first and they were not able to do anything …show more content…

treating women in many plays is a controversial topic, because it is hard to portray them as equals to men. Which, sometimes comes across as the women are being treated badly. In Othello, this miscommunication is not present. This is because the treatment of women here is pretty neutral. According to a feminist reading of this play, “In the Elizabethian era . . . women were expected to be silent, chaste, and obedient to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and all men in general . . . As we go through Othello we find that the women characters are presented according to this expectation of the Elizabethan society” (Feminist). This quote shows that the treatment of women in this play matches the way that the women were treated in the Elizabethan Era, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t good. They were treated like they weren’t there really. They could only talk if they were talked to and they were too do everything that the man said. If they didn’t do these things then they were to be punished. The punishment could be anything really, whatever the man decided to do. In the Elizabethan Era it was also expected that the women were to get married, this was their sole purpose for being on Earth. This play resembles that because everyone doesn’t take it well when Beatrice says that she is not going to get married, “If they have not a

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