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Gender Paragraphs in Othello
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Othello quote bank organised into themes without analysis - all acts included
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GENDERShakespeare explores masculinity firstly through the destructive patriarchal belief in
the inherent duplicity of women and the demonstration of masculinity therefore being in
maintaining the control and obedience of your women. Each of the male characters within
the text categorise women into the sexually promiscuous and the virginal wife, a
categorisation that has been coined by Sigmund Freud as the ‘Madonna Whore’ theory.
Women within Elizabethan time were expected to be completely chaste until marriage (an
expectation that was not expected from men), and once married women were to be
submissive and faithful. To commit ‘fornication’, ‘adultery’ or any ‘unclean’ act was depicted
as going against ‘God’s commandment’. In a 1547 sermon of whoredom and uncleanness,
women who engaged in such acts were seen to ‘abuse the gentleness and humanity’ of her
husband. In a society where women were always guilty until proven innocent, to be labelled
a ‘whore’ therefore meant the downfall of the woman and the tarnishing of the entire
family’s reputation, including the husband, given that women were deemed the property of
husband and their behaviour seen as a reflection of the husband’s masculinity and control.
Desdemona’s death results completely from the implementation of these standards. At first
she is depicted by Cassio and Othello as the ‘virtuous’, ‘honest, ‘gentle’, ‘fresh and delicate’ ,
‘obedient’, modest’, ‘indeed perfection’ and ‘the world has not a sweeter creature’. The
lexical field of innocence, purity and docile nature fit the characteristics expected by this
patriarchal dictum of a good woman in Elizabethan England. Ania Loomba expresses how
‘Iago’s machinations are effective because Othello is predisposed to believing his
pronouncements about the inherent duplicity of women’. Iago successfully destructs
Othello’s relationship with the virtuous Desdemona by planting the seeds of her infidelity
with Cassio into Othello’s mind, a ploy he supports through the ‘evidence’ of Desdemona’s
handkerchief in Cassio’s possession: ‘I saw Cassio use this handkerchief to wipe his beard
with’. The handkerchief becomes arguably a metonymic representation of Othello and
Desdemona’s wedding sheets. The handkerchief is perceived to be ‘spotted with
strawberries’ of which Lynda Boose draws on the Elizabethan gardener’s belief in the
strawberry being the purest of fruits arguing the fruits to be the emblem of virginal blood
and therefore the consummation of Othello and Desdemona’s marriage. Othello placing
such value on the inanimate object enables Iago to turn Othello’s view of Desdemona to the
grotesque: ‘monster’, ‘beast’, ‘a cistern of foul toads’, dehumanising and demonising her. He
further refers to her as ‘strumpet!’ synonymous to whore. The extent of Othello’s new
hatred for Desdemona as a ‘whore’, results in his desire to murder Desdemona. He beliefs
this honour killing will prevent Desdemona to ‘betray more men’, emphasising his need to
assert his masculine control and hierarchy over other men. Furthermore, Othello draws on
the Old Testament: ‘it strikes where it doth love’ to suggest alike God punishing humanity for
their personal growth, men should punish their wives for their own good. Ultimately
masculine belief in the duplicity of women results in the death of not only Desdemona but
also Emilia, who after acting as a voice of feminism throughout the text and turning against
her husband – an action that gets her labelled ‘villianous whore’ by Iago- is murdered.
Shakespeare presents Othello’s desire to be perceived as ‘masculine’ even
within death as exposing the extremity of Othello’s and other male character’s dependence
on masculine validation. A.C Bradley in 1901 explores how Othello can be seen as a tragic
, hero, ‘the most romantic figure among Shakespeare’s heroes’, to whom the audience feel
‘admiration and love’ through his final speech. However, in contrast, T.S Elliott presents
Othello as guilty of self dramaticisation and seeking to evade his own responsibility of
murdering his wife. Through Elliot’s narrative, Othello’s final descriptions within the text
appear to construct a narrative of the male tragic hero, and to excuse himself of murder. This
is evident through Othello’s staging of the murder as a result of ‘fate’ and ‘ill-starred’, where
Desdemona’s murder appears unavoidable. He further refers to himself within the third
person: ‘where should Othello go?’ emphasising his curating of a story and distancing of
himself from his own actions. He exploits hyperbolic language: ‘blow me about in the winds,
roast me in sulphur, wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire’ drawing on hellish imagery
to express an intense regret and need of self punishment, however the abundance of such
imagery distorts his message to appear ingenuine. Only a few lines later, Othello contradicts
his previous self damnation by drawing once more on his narrative of the heroic Othello: ‘I
have done the state some service and they know’t’. He implores his peers to ‘speak of me as
I am’- this being the hypermasculine soldier, who supported Venice in battle and ‘loved not
wisely but too well’. The lack of reference to his own grief for Desdemona becomes
ultimately evident within his final lines where Othello depicts himself as ‘like the base
Indian’ having thrown ‘a pearl away’, here Desdemona is objectified to his ‘pearl’ and
Othello otherises himself to ‘base Indian’. Othello draws on the masculine images of
violence and war referencing himself as both ‘a malignant and turbaned Turk’ and
‘Venetian’, where his suicide becomes a symbol of their battle. Through all these images
Othello seeks to gain the sympathies of his male comrades, whom in the final lines of the
play refer to Othello as ‘great of heart’, evidencing how Othello’s crafted narrative evokes
masculine admiration.
Emilia’s role within Othello, acts as a voice of feminism, exposing the unjust position
of women within the early modern society. She evokes to the misogynistic placement of
women as the subordinate and possessions of their husbands, through gustatory imagery:
‘they are all stomachs and we all but food; they eat us hungerly and when they are full they
belch us’. Women here are portrayed as inanimate objects that are devoured for masculine
pleasure, with no agency of their own, and thrown out when no longer needed.
Furthermore, the idea of an empty ‘stomach’ presents women as simply filling a hole to then
be disposed: ‘they belch us’, the sexual undertones highlighting the focus on feminine
physicality rather than love. This gustatory imagery returns in the following act where Emilia
dictates: ‘their wives have sense like them: they see and smell and have their palates both
for sweet and sour as husbands have’. Emilia expresses that alike men, women too can have
sexual desire (‘palates both for sweet and sour’). This was a belief that would have been
shamed upon within the Elizabethan context where women were dually presented as either
the pure and innocent ‘Madonnas’ or promiscuous ‘whores’, but never both. Within Othello,
feminine sexuality is heavily shamed by the male characters animalising sexual women to
‘foul toads’ ‘fitchews’ ‘beasts’ and ‘creatures’. From a male narrative, women are to blame
for infidelity, yet Emilia not only expresses the ability for women to have ‘affections…as men
have’ but also addresses the husband’s fault ‘if their wives do fall’: ‘they slack their duties
and pour our treasures into foreign laps; or else break out in peevish jealousies, throwing
restraint upon us ; or say they strike us.’ Emilia draws on male infidelity: ‘pour our treasures
into foreign laps’, abuse: ‘or say they strike us’ and overall how the lack of love and respect
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