Depiction of Female Characters in Shakespeare’s Othello

It is their husbands faults, if their wives do fail. Othello, a joke near race, power and gender is one of the best works of Shakespe be, and highlights few of the major(ip) societal issues of his time. On the one side is Othello, who is caught in his racial inferiority, fleck the prejudices his society has heaped upon him. And on the other side is Desdemona, who has transgressed her gender lines to marry the Moor, alone is ultimately pushed into the sphere of submission and obedience the traditional place where a woman should keep herself.We atomic number 18 made to wonder then Whose disaster is Othello really ab stunned and who was the real victim, Othello for his racial inferiority or Desdemona for her gender? If Othello makes himself appear to be a victim of Iagos plans, confessing nought I did in hate, precisely all in honor, then he had too had once made Desdemona his victim. And not Desdemona alone, the other two wo men in the play, Emilia and Bianca face similar con sequences. Emilia is another chaste, obedient and leal wife to Iago the malignant conniver, worser than Desdemona, she is neer treated as a wife.And the ratiocination Bianca is, in fact, a fallen woman a prostitute. The treatment of women in the play and the assumptions made intimately them removes the curtains drawn and triggers the single question in the minds of the readers How true is the depiction of women in the play, and did Shakespeares society treat women in the same manner? As a matter of fact, seventeenth one C England did not reserve a grand place for women, and feminist literature on womens deplorable lives have come up in general during Shakespeares time.This paper will study the three women characters and emit few light on the injustice faced by them and how they have been unmingled projections of male prejudices they are assumed to be what men think them to be. The mavin of the play is the beautiful, fair-skinned Venetian Desdemona. As her name would sta nd to mean unfortunate, Desdemona proves to be the most-affected victim of Iago, as until Othello comes to smother her, she was unaware of the cruel stake played against her. Innocently in enjoy ith Othello, she has been extremely loyal and appurtenant to her husband. When the play first introduces Desdemona, she is a different person from what she will make up in Cyprus. Bold in her approach and almost fearless, she does not resemble the Venetian women of seventeenth century by leaving her fathers house and marrying the Moor, thus committing miscegenation she takes her first step in redefining her constituent as a woman. She confirms Othellos speech and accepts Othello as her husband.With her cunning, she vigorously handles the situation and adeptly performs her divided duty to her father for life and education, and to Othello for creation her husband and companion she admits her wifely behavior descending from her mother, who had in addition once preferred her husband to her father. Her chi hindquarterse is not affected by Othellos racial difference as she could overlook Othellos physiological ugliness and fall in love with the man inside him she apothegm Othellos visage in his mind.She excessively subverts feminism by unflinchingly asserting her sexuality and her love affair with Othello, and firmly says, I did love the Moor to live with him, and decides to follow him to Cyprus. That is the only time we see Desdemonas vigor to stand for her defense. The shift of the play from Venice to Cyprus is not just spatial, it too has figureic overtones. As from then onwards, Desdemona is reallocated to the position she tried to transgress, although in a different form this time, playing a wife.Without any relatives or acquaintances, in Cyprus Desdemona is all on her own and all the more vulnerable. Her marriage becomes a scandal, not in her failure to receive her fathers prior consent but in her husbands blackness. That blackness- the sign of all that the society finds f rightlyening and dangerous- is the indelible lulu to Othellos permanent status as an outsider, and to convince him the truth in Desdemonas love is impossible. Being a self-fashioner, he is always in need of symbols and signs to believe in Desdemonas idea about him as her hero.First, her confirmation speech becomes the symbol of her love, then, to continue the trust-game Othello gives her a handkerchief his contractable straight-lacedty, received from his mother, who in her turn had received it from an old witch as a blessing to her marital life. The appearance of the handkerchief is believed to be a white cloth with a red strawberry imprinted on it. symbolically it represents the bedspread of a married woman, with her virginal blood-stains on it, and also becomes the symbol of Desdemonas chastity, purity and her loving, civilizing sexual power.With the loss of it she loses Othellos trust, and as chirp Neely puts it The handkerchief is lost literally and sy mbolically not because of the failure of Desdemonas love but because of Othellos loss of faith in that love love is not sustained with symbols and signs but through conviction. This brings out the frail nature of Othellos love for Desdemona, held not by his meat but by the handkerchief. Othellos fear of being deceived and cuckolded rises from the flaw that is organic in him the self that would never grow out of the uncertainties for being racially inferior looks upon Desdemona as the strumpet.A chaste wife, being killed by her husband because he lacked self-identity and the power to recognize the devil inside him is universally hold as the most appalling crime committed against an innocent woman. another(prenominal) woman is Emilia, wife to Iago and the only companion of Desdemona in Cyprus. As the play progresses, she emerges from a common maid to a heroic individual. Dismissing Iagos complains about Emilias noisiness Desdemona says Alas She has no speech. Desdemona seems righ t until the middle of the play. Emilia has no existence apart from her instrumentality to the dapple.She passes the handkerchief to Iago, unaware of his plans what he will/ Heaven knows not I. / I nothing but to please his fantasy. Emilia is heard dissertation elaborately only in Act IV, position iii also termed the willow scene, which stages the conversation between Desdemona and Emilia. In this scene, Emilia comes crosswise as a realist with her ideas like The worlds a coarse thing it is a great price / For a small fault and when she says that wrong and right are relative terms, and wrongs can easily be transformed into right by the power-wielders.The most striking words are when she says that a husband is liable for his wifes infidelity, as their snub or envy or suspicion egg on the woman to commit treachery. According to Gayle Greene Emilias is a perspective to which we tout ensemble ascribe, entrenched as it is in a material reality, but her lot complements Desdemonas a nd represents some of the bawdy and toughness that Desdemona lacks. He further continues say Emilias clarity of ideas can be attributed to her social bod she has never been adulated, she is no ones jewel and has remained clear-eyed and without illusions.Although she did resurrect her husbands fantasies like Desdemona. However, her previous error, unknowingly committed can be easily forgiven because of her sorority ties with Desdemona. She has not only been a friend in Desdemonas loneliest times, but also becomes her voice in Act V, scene ii after her death O. the more angel she, /And you the blacker devil resembling Desdemona, she too faces disillusionment about the man she has tied knots with on realizing Iagos misdeeds, pronounced by her diversely inflected reiterations of my husband.Desdemona, even on her death-bed made her last attempt to protect Othello from his guilt by replying Nobody, I myself to Emilias Who hath done this deed? and spells her last words of truth Comm end me to my kind lord. Emilia inverts her role as a wife and commits herself to her duties as a loyal maid to her mistress Tis proper I obey him but not now. / Perchance, Iago, I will neer go home, until she is abruptly dispatched by a hollow from Iago. Of the two women in the play, two are killed by their husbands after being despised as whores the third woman, Bianca is actually a whore.She survives not through her own endeavor to appropriate herself to fit in the mens world, but simply because she is not central enough to be pulled into Iagos plot. Women here are objects of mens horrible fancies, fancies which are projections of their own worst fears and failings. They are either silent spectators throughout their lives, never retaliating, or else immediately silenced if they ever make an attempt to over-rule mens scheme of things.Bibliography1. G.K Hunters Murdering Wives in Othello. 2. www.guttenberg.com/Othello 3. www.projectmuse.com/Othello and Desdemona 4. Introduction an d elect essays from Norton edition.