The Feminist Lens In Shakespeare's Othello

Now, Desdemona does not get to live out her life, all because of one man’s jealousy. These two examples reveal that Othello’s stupidity and his desire for revenge influence his decision to yell at and eventually kill Desdemona, showing how an innocent woman was caught in the crosshairs of a bigger

Desdemona is incredulous that anyone would actually cheat on a spouse. Her naivety becomes evident as she timidly avoids more graphic phrases. Emalia explains many people do, to Desdemona’s surprise. The fact that Desdemona is so loving towards Othello makes her death more tragic. She wants to follow his every order.

Desdemona is the perpetual dutiful wife to Othello, which fulfills feminist expectations of women as wives during this time period. Desdemona can be viewed as submissive and oppressed.n this quote, Othello is stating that his wife’s supposed infidelity has ruined his name and turned it “black” and dirty like his own face, showing that a woman’s fidelity was linked to a man’s honor. In this case, a woman’s promiscuity not only devalued her, but also her partner.

“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity.” – Sylvia Plath From Elizabethan society in Othello to mid-20th century in the Bell Jar, just as stated from Plath, patriarchy in the form of social convention and expectation defines the life of women with feminity. I. The oppressive patriarchal society in Othello

By having Brabantio describe Desdemona in comparison to an abject, Shakespeare sets the story up for a theme as women as property. She is further described as being ‘stolen/robbed’ from Brabantio. Using this description, Shakespeare expresses how the men of the play view Desdemona as a trophy, because she is a perfect wife, and has all the qualities that a wife should possess. This vision of Desdemona continues until her honor is at risk, and suddenly all of her positive qualities are. After Iago convinces Othello of a false affair between Desdemona and Cassio, all of Othello's previous love for Desdemona dissipates.

Desdemona is a white, Venetian debutante that chooses to marry a black man, a Moor, over the wishes of her father. At the beginning of the play, merely six hours after being married, Desdemona’s father attempts to stop her from accompanying Othello on military duty. He relents when Desdemona pledges her allegiance to Othello by telling her father, “But here’s my husband, And so much duty as my mother showed to you, preferring you before her father, so much I challenge that I may profess due to the Moor my Lord”

A Modern View of Feminist Criticism William Shakespeare 's "Othello” can be analyzed from a feminist perspective. This criticism focuses on relationships between genders, like the patterns of thoughts, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within sexes. A feminist examination of the play enables us to judge the distinctive social esteems and status of women and proposes that the male-female power connections that become an integral factor in scenes of Othello impact its comprehension. 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

Desdemona, daughter to senator Brabantio has spurned the advances of eligible young Venetian men, but is captivated by Othello chiefly because of his harsh experiences. We first come

MLA International Bibliography EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/jem.2015.0006. Accessed 14 Mar. 2017. Synopsis Jealousy is evident in Shakespeare’s Othello through several sources, but most commonly seen as possessiveness over the female characters (with a focus on Desdemona) in the play.

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.

The repetition of the word ‘lust’, combined with the sexual associations of Desdemona’s bed, reflects and draws attention to Othello’s preoccupation with sensual matters. Othello even refers to his precious wife as ‘whore’ (III.iii.356), a ‘subtle whore’ (III.ii.20) and a ‘cunning whore’ (IV.ii.88), in a way to appreciate him. Shakespeare actually has indirectly revealed Othello’s fear of Desdemona’s sexuality. Even though Othello seems to be very confident in him and his control over Desdemona, he is actually tentative and afraid that Desdemona will cheat on him, proving his

Although Othello has risen to power in a society where he is an outsider, he still believes he may be inferior because of it. His inability to disprove this belief in his marriage leads to his tragic downfall. After Shakespeare has first introduced the audience to the newlyweds, he immediately sends them off to challenges at Cyprus. Along with their own physical differences, they now lack the time to find a common ground of interests. This is the first crack in the foundation of Othello and Desdemona’s love.

At the start of the play, Othello, uses his word to win Desdemona over by the stories that he is telling her father. Othello and Desdemona also define their love

Othello’s This rage at Desdemona’s infidelity signals destmetion of his identity as a successful and loving man. It shows that he now completely loses control of himself, he no longer is that gentle man. He has become so poisoned by the manipulation of Iago, he no longer hears out for his “fair

In his play “Othello,” Shakespeare is very compassionate towards the women of his era. He treats Desdemona with special sympathy. She is the victim of two crossed male aspirations — the devilry of villain Iago and the jealousy of her husband. The main cause of Desdemona’s tragedy is the total absence of women’s personal liberty. The lack of self-development without restrictions of society and family constricts the mind.