Women In Othello And Chaucer's Wife Of Bath

When she mentions how crude she was to her husband’s we can see the similarities between her and the old woman, for in her tale when the old woman is in bed with the knight she teases him by saying, “Does every knight behave thus with his wife as you do?” (The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Line 1088). The old woman begs the question of her husband that if he had the choice, “to have me ugly and old until I die, and to be to you a true, humble wife, and never displease you in all my life, or else you will have me young and fair, and take your chances of the crowd” she tells him to choose and he says to choose whichever shall be most pleasing to her (The Wife of Bath’s Tale

In act 1, scene 5, when the ghost commands Hamlet to seek revenge, Hamlet first curses his mother “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!”. Women were expected to instantly obey any male in the family and Gertrude follows orders without hesitation, most likely in fear of being punished she says “I shall obey you” in Act 3. The women in Shakespeare are consistently loyal to the men in their lives, no matter what the circumstances, which is not fair at all to women. By saying women must be loyal to men, even if they treat them poorly makes women completely lesser to men and allows them to walk all over women. Men all over in Hamlet share the same opinion on women and believe their actions are okay.

She sits Betty up and furiously shakes her. I 'll beat you, Betty! Betty whimpers. My, you seem improving. I talked to your papa and I told him everything so there 's nothing to- Betty, darts off the bed, and flattens herself against the wall: I want my mama!

In Othello, Iago’s wife Emilia says a lot about the sexes that makes you think of the way women were treated in the Elizabethan era compared to today’s society. In my opinion, I agree that Emilia’s views about betrayal express a contemporary view of the relationship between the sexes. Women were known as property and worthless if they slept with a man before marriage. If a woman were to disobey her husband she would be punished and mistreated. They didn’t have much freedom to be or chose on their own.

Stereotypes of Women in The Canterbury Tales Stereotypes of women have not changed throughout the years of history. Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer portrays women through negative stereotypes. Women are portrayed as selfish, lustful and immoral. In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue women are portrayed as selfish. The wife announced she had been married five times and she thinks she knows everything there is to know about marriage.

She wore a floor length loose gown which she put on to cover her sins, yet still accentuated her womanly assets which most men in the town knew her for. When she committed her acts of adultery, or was abused by her husband, she was seen in a still dark colored risque sleep set. Her costume was an important factor for her character because she didn’t want people to see her as an adulteress even though she committed multiple scandalous acts continuously throughout the production. Even when she downright wished death upon another being, she simply put her dress back on to hide from being haunted by her terrors and played the victim. Overall the cast and crew did a great job of keeping the audience on their toes.

Curley’s Wife is the only major female in Steinbeck’s novel, and as such, she represents all women in this short parable about how futile dreams are. Is she solely responsible for the end of George and Lennie’s dream, or is she just a misunderstood character? She is perhaps one of the more complex characters – neither ‘all bad’ like Curley, or ‘all good’ like Slim. In this passage, Steinbeck uses two main techniques to present Curley’s Wife: the symbolism of colour and his description of her. The symbolism of the colour red cannot escape us: she has ‘rouged’ lips and ‘red’ fingernails; her mules are red and they are covered with ‘red’ ostrich feathers.

The strength of the women’s performances clarifies that the sisters rule their fading aristocratic home, but the end of their class privilege is signaled when Natásha instantly begins running the household after she marries their brother, Andréy (a soulful, befuddled, and finally furious Josh Hamilton). Chekhov invests in Natásha all the uncouth flailing of what he saw as the ascending middle-class. Her terrible French accent horrifies the sisters, who palpably dislike her, even before she begins reassigning their bedrooms so that her baby can have the house’s best air and light. She moves Ólga and Irína farther into the house’s lower regions, dismantling their power and their right to their own property. And, of course, one of Natásha’s

Women in the nineteenth and twentieth century were not treated equally to men; Henrik Ibsen demonstrated this in his play A Doll's House. Throughout the play the protagonist, Nora Helmer, faces disrespect and mistreatment by her husband, Torvald. Nora Helmer is shown as a woman who has manipulated people and lied on countless occasions, but she is a woman who behaves in such a way because she is trapped in her marriage, until she finally escapes and stands as a hero to women of the century. In the first moments of the play Nora is introduced as child-like women who is a seen as a manipulator and liar, but this is only the surface of her character. In deeper look into Nora’s character her manipulative and lying ways were for better outcomes

Childless and merciless, Madame Defarge is the antithesis of Lucie Manette. Both women possess the ability to inspire others, but while Lucie creates and nurtures life, Madame Defarge destroys it. Because her entire family perished when she was a young girl, Madame Defarge wants revenge, not merely on the family that caused the evil but on the entire class from which it came. Her knitting represents both her patience and her urge to retaliate, because she knits the names of her intended victims. She knits a register of all the oppressors belonging to the ancien régime, dooming them to destruction.

His plays are based on the combination of different kinds of humor and political and social satire. One of his most important plays is Lysistrata. In the lysistrata, it is about women withholding sex from their husbands to end the Peloponnesian war. Lysistrata persuades the women to not have sex with their husbands to basically have some peace, but it only caused problems between the sexes. This play shows how much mind control women have over men.

Despite her preference for the house downstairs, her husband demands her to stay in the nursery, and all her views are shuttered. Her frustrations are evident when she says “what is one to do?” (Gilman, Perkins, & Shulman 648). In fact, it is not only her husband John who oppresses her but her brother, one of the physicians attending her as well. The brother approves all that John does to his sister in providing support for her

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.

Claudius also shows this when he tells Hamlet “Tis unmanly grief,” (I,II) basically saying that Hamlet is acting like a woman since he is mourning over the death of his father. Gertrude says “ I shall obey you,” (III,I) this shows that despite that she is a queen she has little to no power at all, because the men overrule the women. This play definitely shows a strong feminist critique through the way women are treated. Ophelia is shown to be told what to do and have all her