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Othello, By William Shakespeare

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Shakespeare’s Othello, a play which begins with Othello, a moor and his wife Desdemona’s perpetual love, ends as a tragic as Desdemona is murdered by her husband and lover Othello. The other characters in the play such as Iago, Michael Cassio, Emilia, Roderigo and Bianca play an active role in this tragic end. However, more than the characters that play the active role in a tragic end, the inferiority of the women depict in the play ultimately results in such an ending. The only three women in the play are Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca and all three of the women portray the expectations of women in Shakespeare’s patriarchal Elizabethan society. They are in a men dominated society and are expected to follow and live under the male authority. It can thus be argued that in Othello Desdemona is marginalized and suppressed by the men in the play, as she is used for her sexuality and portrayed as a possession and thus she is depicted as the other. Desdemona is portrayed as the other in Othello, because Othello wants to stay true to his expected authoritative role. Shakespeare presents the women such as Desdemona as possessions through diction and his style of language, as his choice of word portrays the women to be read upon as possessions and property rather than humans. Othello in the play already holds on to an authoritative role as he is the general of the Venetian army, therefore staying true to his dominant and expected role is very important to him. Desdemona is portrayed as

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