Feminist Point Of View In Shakespeare's Othello

The women in Othello and Chaucer's Wife of Bath differ, but in the end both want their husbands to love them. In Othello there are only three women displayed in the story, but the statements that were said about these three women were the belief that all women in that society were all the same- evil, whores who were temptress to the men. The three women; Desdemona, the wife of Othello, Emilia, the wife of Iago, and Bianca, perceived as a prostitute who is a “customer” (l. 138. 4.1) of Cassio. Iago is one of the main characters who degrades and slanders all women including his wife Emilia.

In doing so, examine the feminist lens’s interpretation of the text. How are gender roles defined? Where to women fit into the text’s plot line. What do you notice about the women in this text? Is this congruent (similar) to society’s view of women, by today’s standards?

Although being written centuries apart, the limited expectations of women presented in ‘Othello’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ differ little from each other. The female characters are confined by society’s expectations of male dominance, female purity and virginity, and the many passive roles of women. Despite the differing legalities surrounding the position of women between the centuries in which the plays were written, both plays explore the impact of how societal conventions confine women and the ways they must comply to be safe in a patriarchal society. The behaviours and treatments of Desdemona, Blanche and Stella illustrate the attitudes enforced on and the behaviours of women throughout both periods in time and it is these attitudes and behaviours that impact the plays to the greatest extent. When characters in either plays defy their norms, or demonstrate a lack of compliance they induce negative consequences, such as the murder of Desdemona and the institutionalisation of Blanche.

Feminism is the philosophy, found in both literature and society, that the Western world is fundamentally patriarchal. Throughout the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, there are several examples of women being oppressed, as seen through the feminist critical lens. Miller uses male characters to reference to women objectively to help demonstrate this. This teaches that women are oppressed not just in literature, but in life. The female characters gain power in a male-dominated society through an elaborate plot of accusations and executions.

Romeo and Juliet Essay “Shakespeare and Misogyny” A world where men dominate women. This idea was the basis of many Renaissance era dramas. Writers always used to perceive certain genders as having distinctive qualities and traits. Men were held up to a higher respect and given more violent roles than women.

It’s no surprise, that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was clearly constructed as a rebellion against femininity roles of the time. During the Elizabethan era, women were raised to believe they were inferior to men since men obtained desired masculine qualities such as strength, and loyalty, whereas women were viewed as figures of hospitality (1; 6; 28-31). Obviously, not being tempted by the luxury of subservient women, William Shakespeare rebuked this twisted belief, applying that women deserve more respect than their kitchen tables.

I believe that the critical lens that provides modern society with the most compelling view of literature is Feminist Criticism because it analyzes distrust and disloyalty among relationships, women being treated as possessions and shows the representation of powerful women. Modern society would analyze literature using a feminist perspective because most literature analyzes the relationship between genders and the powerful influence and meaning it has to the readers life. Othello is a great play to analyze with many different types of literature criticisms, but Feminist Criticism analyzes the plot and the main characters situation most. It is still so common to see many of the points presented in the book till this day, men believing that they are stronger than women and treating them as inferior. Even so women are trying to make their voice be heard and demonstrating everyday the vital impact they have in society.

Othello secretly marries Desdemona without telling anyone because he is afraid of the reactions he might get from the

While Desdemona is a remarkably strong character, Emilia also displays independence unmatched by any other female in Othello, and there are multiple details of Shakespeare and his time that may have prompted such a portrayal. In Elizabethan England, many women worked behind the scenes of productions, like Shakespeare’s, as uncredited authors and editors (Crowley). Due to their anonymity, nobody can be sure that women were involved in Shakespeare’s plays nor Othello in particular, but there is a genuine possibility that female writers did have leverage. This may have had to do with how Emilia was portrayed as resilient from the time of Desdemona’s death all the way until her own, standing up for herself regardless of the ridicule it caused her (Iyasere). In fact, it even killed her in the end.

In William Shakespeare’s Othello the two main characters are Iago and Othello. The entire story centers around Iago 's plan to achieve revenge on Othello for not promoting him to lieutenant. Throughout the story Iago tries to convince Othello that his wife Desdemona has cheated on him with his lieutenant Cassio. Iago’s plan is successfully and easily executed. Othello is tricked into believing that desdemona has been unfaithful and in the end he kills her.

At the beginning of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Emilia, Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s attendant, remains blindly loyal to her husband. Emilia demonstrates her blind loyalty when she steals Desdemona’s handkerchief for Iago, stating that she is “nothing but to please his fancy” (3.3.343). However, by the end of the play, she comes to realize the dark truths about her husband and reveals them. Unlike the other characters in the play, including Iago, Othello, and even Desdemona, Emilia is driven by honesty and logic, rather than passion or jealousy. Her ability to think logically eventually causes her to abandon her loyalty to Iago and pursue of truth and justice.

Shakespeare's Othello is set during the Renaissance period and therefore the roles of the women in Othello are supposedly bounded by the period when women are considered to be of low intellect. In Othello, most male characters assume that women are inherently promiscuous, which explains why all three women characters in the play are accused of sexual infidelity. Yet Shakespeare develops the women to speak the most sense throughout the play and able to trust other characters in the play. To the men in Othello, female sexuality is a threatening force more than it is an attractive one.

Feminist theatre came into being as a by product of the experimental theatre movement of the 1970s’ and 1980’. It was an alternate theatre which enabled women to explore their creative talents on stage independently. Feminist theatre served as a means of constructing an exclusive feminist discourse on stage that questioned the patriarchal norms of female subjugation. Its movement was towards the construction of a theatre space where women are no longer mere stage props. They started functioning as the creators of drama rather than being confined to the roles of wife, lover, mother or lunatic.

For Shakespeare’s plays to contain enduring ideas, it must illustrate concepts that still remain relevant today, in modern society. Shakespeare utilises his tragic play Othello, to make an important social commentary on the common gender stereotypes. During early modern England, Shakespeare had to comply to the strict social expectations where women were viewed as tools, platonic and mellow, and where men were displayed as masculine, powerful, tempered, violent and manipulative. As distinct as this context is to the 21st century, the play exposes how women were victimised by the men who hold primary power in the community in which they compelled women to conform to the ideal world of a perfect wife or confront an appalling destiny for challenging the system. Moreover, Shakespeare utilises the main antagonist, Iago, to portray how men are desperate to achieve what they want and to indirectly fulfil the stereotype of masculinity and power through manipulation.

Feminist literary criticism’s primary argument is that female characters have always been presented from a male’s viewpoint. According to Connell, in most literary works, female characters often play minor roles which emphasize their domestic roles, subservience and physical beauty while males are always the protagonists who are strong, heroic and dominant (qtd. in Woloshyn et al.150). This means that the women are perceived as weak and are supposed to be under the control of men. Gill and Sellers say that feminist literary criticism’s approach involves identifying with female characters in order to challenge any male centred outlook.