Women in Othello/ Elizabethan Times Essay Example

When Desdemona tells him that she now owes her loyalty to her husband he is clearly upset and gives Othello Desdemona’s hand even though Brabantio claims he has already taken it.Even though Desdemona has made her own decision, Brabantio still feels that he needs to give his daughter away. It is also showed that men had owned women when Desdemona said “she once owed her loyalty to her father but now owes it to her husband” (98).

Desdemona was never at any point in Othello well not at least when she was alive her own person she always was there to make a man happy. The way women of the Elizabethan times were treated is shown in they play when Emilia asks Desdemona, “Isn’t frailty that thus errs? / It is so too. And have not we affections? Desires for sport? And frailty/ as men have? / Then let them use us well; else let them know, / The ills we do, their ills instruct us so” (95-100). Emilia is a character in Othello that challenges what is expected from Elizabethan women. Emilia first challenges the standard of silence that is expected from Elizabethan women. She challenges this when Othello calls Desdemona a "whore" for cheating.

In reply, Emilia speaks up loudly against Othello. After finding Desdemona killed, Emilia challenges silence again: "As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-..The Moor hath killed my mistress! " (171,174). Although Othello tells Emilia that it would be "best" for her to remain silent; she ignores his command and ridicules him for killing Desdemona. Emilia challenges the social norm of chastity by condoning women that deceive their

husbands.

Although Emilia does not openly state whether she has ever cheated, she does say that she would not cheat for little, material wealth, but any woman would cheat in order to make her husband king: "Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? ( 77).In addition, Emilia explains that the reason women cheat is because their husbands "slack their duties" and "break out into peevish jealousies ( 87, 89). Emilia challenges obedience when she disobeys Iago in order to defend Desdemona. After Desdemona is killed, Othello talks about how Desdemona was unfaithful and about the handkerchief that she supposedly gave to Cassio: "With that recognizance and pledge of love / which I first gave her.

I saw it in his hand (5. 2. 221,222). Against Iago's wishes, Emilia tells Othello that Iago asked her to steal the handkerchief.As a result of Emilia’s disobedience Iago kills Emilia. Although Emilia is missing the attributes that define a Elizabethan women, she clearly displays the characteristics of a strong-minded individual Emilia may not have been considered a woman during the Elizabethan times; but today, many people respect a woman that exemplifies the strength and courage of Emilia.

. In “Shakespeare Sister” by Virginia Woolf states that “when the husband had been assigned, he was lord and master, so far at least as law and custom could make him” (1-2). This is uncovered in the play Othello when Desdemona calls Othello her lord.Woolf also states that "the daughter who refused to marry the gentleman of her parents' choice was liable to be locked up, beaten and flung about the room, without any shock being inflicted

on public opinion. Marriage was not an affair of personal affection, but of family avarice, particularly in the 'chivalrous' upper classes (3-5).

” This is expected in the Elizabethan times but this is why Othello is different. Desdemona picked her own husband even a man of a different race. Once her father found that she runaway with a man of a different color and got married with out his permission he was furious.She went against what was expected of Elizabethan women to do and this is why her father was mad at her.

This was the first step in redefining her role as a woman. By choosing her own husband was an act of independence by Desdemona took away the gender barriers of the Elizabethan times society and posed a threat to male authority Heather Thomas states in her essay titled “Elizabethan Women” that “women were regarded as "the weaker sex", not just in terms of physical strength, but emotionally too. It was believed that women always needed someone to look after them.If they were married, their husband was expected to look after them. If they were single, then their father, brother or another male relative was expected to take care of them”(1-2). According to the “men of the Elizabethan times, chastity, silence, and obedience are three attributes that define Elizabethan women” (Stallybrass 199).

Although Othello takes place during the Elizabethan times, the women in the play, Bianca, Desdemona and Emilia, rebel against traditional norms by in that each one lacks at least one of the major attributes defining women.Bianca's lack of chastity is clearly displayed when she unlawfully sleeps with Cassio. Desdemona's lack of

silence is clearly displayed when she constantly urges Othello to give Cassio's position back. However, in the last two acts, Emilia displays the strongest challenge to the “definition of Elizabethan women as silent, chaste, and obedient” (Stallybrass 125), mainly to defend Desdemona. In Othello this is the main reason Emilia is killed. “Emilia speaks out against her husband and exposes his machinations.

She finds the voice that she had appeared to misplace when she first arrived in Cyprus. Though Iago warns her to (charm her tongue) and go home, she does not obey him” (Cassal) Emilia speaking out and standing up for herself leads to her death. “This series of actions represents a complete collapse of Peter Stallybrass's three areas for the surveillance and control of women--silences, chastity, and the obedience (125-27). At the end of the play Emilia showed that she was very strong woman that did not need anyone and died brave for what she believed in.You can look back to literature and see how women were viewed.

In “Shakespeare Sister” by Virginia Woolf states that “any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people”.Shakespeare did this when he created Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca these women were women who did not follow what was expected of Elizabethan women of their time. Being different

and being you was not allowed or accepted in Elizabethan times.

This is shown in Shakespeare because all the women who stood up for themselves or were different were killed in the end. This is what made Othello such a popular play. It showed women that you can stand up for yourself and be different. Work Cited Berggren, Paula S.

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” Literature: reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Sixth Edition.Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2007. 1455-1542.

Stallybrass, Peter. "Patriarchal Territories. " Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986. 123-42. Thomas, Heather. "Elizabethan Women.

" The Life and Times of Queen Elizabeth I. 1998. 27 Feb. 2007 <http://www. elizabethi. org>.

Woolf, Virginia. “Shakespeare’s Sister. ” A World of Ideas. 6th ed. Ed.

Lee A. Jacobus. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 801-812.