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.
In the play, “Othello”, the character of Desdemona portrays a modern view of feminist criticism. Most of her words and actions support this view. In the tragedy, Desdemona is one of the most tragic characters. The character of Desdemona is the wife of Othello, daughter of Brabantio, and Emilia’s mistress.
To be woman in the early days of the seventeenth century is to live in an age of deeply entrenched sexism and gender-roles. What is often not considered is the roles that men, despite their roles as oppressors, were forced into. Men were caged by extreme expectations of toxic masculinity. Othello, the great tragedy by William Shakespeare written approximately in 1603 deals deeply with this concept. David Bevington (an acclaimed literary critic) and Carol Thomas Neely (Department of English, University of Illinois) assert that the men in Othello, are perhaps most aptly defined by sexual anxiety.
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”
In William Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello, Shakespeare uses the adjective “honest” several times throughout the tragedy to create a sense of irony using the antagonist, Iago, who is constantly dishonest and deceitful to everyone despite claiming he is of honest reputation. Iago is perceived as a very honest man whom Othello, the protagonist, trusts. However, it can be repeatedly seen by the audience that Iago is not honest or trustworthy at all. He lies to create issues for Othello out of jealousy and revenge, yet continues to conceal his true nature through boasting that he is honest and playing victim.
Olson, Rebecca. “ Too Gentle: Jealousy and Class in Othello.” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 3–25.
In Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’, women are portrayed as either pure angelic beings and jewels, or as whores who are impure. They are objectified and shown as something to be used. The only women in this play are Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca compared to the main 6 male characters, not to mention the minor characters, who are also all male. Their depicted purpose is to belong to a man; Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca’s lives revolve around being wives to Othello, Iago and Cassio. This fits into the idea of a perfect Elizabethan woman, who’s lives are subject to their husband’s rule across all aspects, to be disposed of as men wish.
In Shakespeare's Othello women are often claimed to be deceptive, conniving, and just down right devious in the eyes of men, but in we also see the other side of the coin. Desdemona is a great example of how women behaved in Othello. Desdemona is often acquiescent, and quiet. She doesn't object to Othello's claims at the end, she submits and allows him to kill her, and blames herself for it. The rage and jealousy in Othello's heart lead him down the path of destruction.
Nate Hjelmgren Mr. Ralston English Honors 12 March2023 Othello’s Iago: an Example of Dishonest Honesty The anamorphic painting was a style popularized and common during the Renaissance. This style of painting used multiple viewing points and perspectives to change how a painting looks.
The way these women act and conduct themselves is unquestionably related to the ideological expectations of Elizabethan and patriarchal society. Desdemona, Othello 's wife and Brabantio 's daughter, is represented as the ideal woman. So she would never be disloyal to her husband. On many occasions, Desdemona obeys her husband firmly and calls herself obedient even after Othello hits her. She was loving and loyal to Othello and wishes a long marriage of prosperity and commitment that would lead to her ultimate happiness.
“Unjustified doubts about loyalty of friends”. The conflict of Othello the novel has disparity through out all the characters. Most of the intentions through Othello and Lago were very traumatic. The frame of minds while lies was spreading through the castle lead to many deaths. In the movie Othello, The topics will be about their motives, actions, and mental state.
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.
After she becomes Othello’s wife, Desdemona is no longer a dissenting character as “she does not question the woman’s obligation to obey” (Greenblatt 1980: 239), she becomes a passive and obedient woman towards her husband. Moreover, the way in which Othello calls her wife: “Come, my dear love,/ The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue” (Othello, Act 2, scene iii), reinforces the idea of women being possessions to their husbands. Finally, Desdemona’s sexuality is questioned by Othello’s internalized Protestantism, who condemns her supposed adulterous wife to
In Othello, Othello and Desdemona are both characters that are struggling with their identities. In the beginning of the play we find Othello as a respectful man that is successful, but then we get Iago that manipulates him to make him seem as the bad guy. We also find Desdemona that turns against her father and the Elizabethan society to marry Othello, but we also find that she is respectful and obedient to Othello.
Also, each relationship in Othello provokes jealousy in one partner. In a typical Venetian society, a woman was considered to be a man’s property, so if a woman was disobedient, it negatively impacted the man, while also questioning his masculinity. The hyperbolic soliloquy as Othello expressed he would “rather be a toad” than “keep a corner of the thing I love” is Othello’s justification of killing his wife, as her untrustworthiness challenged his masculinity and reputation. Referring to Desdemona as a “thing” emphasises the idea of women being property. Iago’s jealousy of Desdemona and Othello’s relationship is emphasised through the degrading comment of Othello, “an old black ram” “tupping” Brabantio’s “white ewe”.
2. Loyalty is a negative trait in Othello. Many characters in Othello were very loyal and it ended in their demise. For example Othello’s loyalty to Iago ended in his death. Othello was so loyal to Iago because of Iago's ability to convince Othello that he was being truthful and that there was in fact, some unfaithfulness happening in his marriage.