Feminism in Othello
Othello is considered to be one of Shakespeare’s more controversial plays because it covers the political and social beliefs of his time. The play is about Othello, who is a black general in the army, married to a white politician’s daughter named Desdemona. The relationship between Othello and Desdemona becomes difficult to sustain because, during the time, there was a lot of sexism and racism. This play maintains a male-dominant world where men have absolute control over women. The male in the play manifests prejudiced, discriminatory attitudes towards women. Shakespeare is helping us understand the expectations of the women in the era of Queen Elizabeth, where we meet the three primary women in the play: Desdemona, Bianca, and Emilia. These women behave based on the way of the stereotype of Elizabethan society, where women were seen as subject to men that they had seen Shakespeare based on the English patriarchy. The women in this play struggle because men view them as inferior and undeserving of equal rights, respect, or dignity, however and the end, Emilia breaks the barrier and airs her views though it leads to her death.
The play features three women who correlated in one way or the other. Desdemona is the wife of Othello. She is a virtuous wife who is strong and obedient to her husband, but who disregarded her father because of her love for Othello. Othello treats her, at first, like a goddess. The second woman is Bianca. She is poorly treated by society and lacks a stable relationship with Cassio. The last woman is Emilia. According to Thompson, the editor of Othello, “Emilia is figured as a battered wife, who does her husband’s bidding even when it goes against her own wishes and/or moral compass, in order to keep him appeased and to maintain a type peace” (48). She seeks love from her husband, but Iago sees Emilia as a whore because he assumes she slept with Othello and maybe even Cassio as well. The relationship of these three women in the play is that all of them have gone through pain in their relationships with men: Bianca receives heartbreak from Casio because she loves him gently, Desdemona disrespects her father because she loves Othello, and Othello goes on to murder her brutally, and Emilia’s husband mistreats her because he does not reciprocate her love and also end up killing her.
The difference between Desdemona, Bianca, and Emilia is that Desdemona is a passive wife. In other words, she agrees to everything that her husband tells her without questioning him. She tries to understand him and avoids creating conflicts with him. Bianca wants a relationship with Cassio, but Cassio sees her as a sex object. Cassio doesn’t love Bianca nor looks for anything serious with her. Bianca, however, loves Cassio and looks for ways to get his attention. Emilia is vocal as she expresses the
The way she feels about men and her way of thinking is different from Desdemona’s thinking. She believes that men should have the same rights as men, to cheat, for example (Thompson 46). Although Emilia is shown as a good vocal and strong woman, she is also to be obedient towards her husband throughout the play, until the last scene when she discovers his plot. Emilia tries to please her husband to see if she can get him to change his attitude towards her. For instance, her stealing Desdemona’s handkerchief shows how she tries pleasing her husband, Iago, although she had to betray her friend, Desdemona, since the handkerchief had been given to her by Othello. (3.3303)
All three women are under the authority of men. They are seen as objects by men in society for instance when Brabantio finds Othello with torches in the middle