share their beauty with the world and that they should not hide away on a farm, doing a man’s job. Which is exactly what his daughter, Lucy does. She does not care about gender roles and does what she has to survive- she makes a simple living. It is clear that David’s ideas of what women should be and act like are long gone. In Othello and The Merchant of Venice these ideas are still very evident. Women were in the minority and had to do what their husbands told them to. They had to be by their husband’s
In many of his works, Shakespeare explores and illustrates the gender differences that appear between men and women. While Shakespeare’s Othello does just that, the two main female characters, Desdemona and Emilia, are shown in accordance with the expectations of women in Elizabethan society. The manners in which these two characters carry themselves, is undeniably linked to the attitudes they are subjected too by their male counterparts. In the play, each woman is essentially “owned” by a male
The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of gender in Shakespeare’s play Othello. This paper argues that patriarchy and the Elizabethan and Puritan society shape the gender roles of Othello. The Puritan society asserts the dominance of men which affects the males behavior towards their wives or significant other. On the other hand, the male characters such as Othello need to maintain and establish hegemony over women which displays the patriarchal tradition during that era. The patriarchal
by William Shakespeare, is the first tragedy Shakespeare has ever written. This play has proven to be very controversial and usually banned in many schools because of its’ gory scenes and “over the top” deaths. It is the ultimate revenge tragedy with no decent humor, forgiveness, or redemption. This play, however, does lay a fundamental basis of the characters for the characters Shakespeare writes later on. Tamora could be seen as the early Lady Macbeth, or Aaron as Iago in Othello. Although the
Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Othello concerns the issues of racial inequality, but at its core, it also explores society's enforcement of gender roles on women and the way they are treated and act despite being forced into these roles by their male counterparts – they are forced to function in their appropriate gender roles in a society conditioned by war in order to survive. The portrayal of women divided into the categories of virgin and whore, consequently leading the two to be confused with
Analyse the writers’ presentation of obstacles to love in ‘Othello’ (1603) by William Shakespeare, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1947) by Tennessee Williams and ‘The Color Purple’ (1982) by Alice Walker. Despite being written in vastly different settings, it seems that all three texts are closely concerned with the struggle of extraordinary and ordinary people alike searching for one admirable end: love. The epistolary novel ‘The Color Purple’ explores the intertwined issues of racism and sexism that
Shakespeare presents women in their respective place as an outsider to the extent that they follow renaissance beliefs of being silent, chaste, and obedient to their husbands and all men in general. In contrast Pinter presents women as outsiders to the extent they don’t follow the social norms present in Othello. This is due to the modern social change happening in the mid 1960’s where women had more rights, an opportunity not present in 1604. Desdemona is a victim of the Venetian patriarchal society
because of the social, economic, cultural and governmental set-ups of the area. Many American Muslim women are discriminated against because they cover their heads; Pakistani women have political rights but are often exploited; Saudi Women have no public role, yet they are the most secure and protected. The negative stereotypes of Muslim women probably arise from this varying treatment of women. This comes handy for the Western media, whose favorite pastime is to latch on to a few examples of illogical