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Shakespeare - Father, Daughter relatiosnhips
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Discussing father, daughter relationships in Shakespeare
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Although Brabantio loves his daughter like any father would, he does notgive her proper the respect she deserves. He believes only he knows what
is best for Desdemona, and that Desdemona herself does not know what
is good for her.
It is one thing to appreciate a person's qualities from afar (or maybe not
so afar, since Brabantio had received Othello as an honored guest in his
home), but quite another matter to accept that person as a member of
one's family. By displaying this contradictory trait in Brabantio,
Shakespeare is skillfully holding the mirror up to all of us, not just citizens
of 16th century England. We, in our modern society, still struggle with
this sort of "two-faced" prejudice today.
That said, Brabantio not only decries the marriage (since it was
completely improper for a daughter to elope without securing her father's
blessing and permission), but goes further and accuses Othello of
bewitching his daughter in order to get her to marry him:
She is abus'd, stol'n from me and corrupted
By spells and medicines, bought of mountebanks,
For nature so preposterously to err...
Sans witchcraft could not.
...I therefore vouch again,
That some mixture powerful o'er the blood,
Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
He wrought upon her.
Certainly, Brabantio is making reference to the impossibility of his
daughter falling in love with a black man. But it is the witchcraft that he is
objecting to before the Duke.
It is up to Othello and Desdemona to convince the Duke that they are
married for love, not by the benefits of witchcraft and potions. And
Othello's speech to the Duke, explaining the real situation of love between
himself and Desdemona, is one of the most powerful and beautiful in all of
Shakespeare (Act I, Scene iii, lines 128 - 170).
As far as King Lear is concerned, his relationships with his daughters are
based on his power and authority, both as a king and as a father.
When his two elder daughters grow up and marry other men, he
loses the authority of a father, and when he gives away his kingdom, he
loses the power of a king.
Capulet's feud with Lord Montague is at the heart of the sorrow Juliet feels
in not being able to be with Romeo. Her father's stubbornness is not
being able to end the feud is what leads to their deaths. Only in the
deaths of the two children can the fathers agree to stop the fighting.
Throughout the play, Capulet's relationship with Juliet demonstrates this
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