Gender Bias in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

Gender Bias in Othello Shakespeares tragic get together Othello is an unfortunate example of gender bias, of sexism which takes advantage of women. The three women characters in the frolic are all, in their own ways, victims of mens skewed attitudes regarding women. let us delve into this topic in this essay. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine comment in the Introduction to Shakespeare Othello that sexism is a big incidentor in the playact At this point in our civilization the plays fascination and its evil may be greater than ever before because we have been make so very sensitive to the issues of race, class, and gender that are woven into the caryopsis of Othello. . . . The issue of gender is especially noniceable in the final scenes of the play with the attacks on Bianca, Emilia, and Desdemona which are vivid reminders of how terrible the power traditionally exerted by men over women can be. (xiii-xiv) In the opening scene, while Iago is expressing his annoyance for the general Othello for his having chosen Michael Cassio for the lieutenancy, he contrives a plan to partially visit himself (I follow him to serve my turn upon him), with Roderigos assistance, by watchfulness Desdemonas father, Brabantio, to the fact of his young ladys elopement with Othello Call up her father, / tear him make after him, poison his delight . . .. Implied in this move is the fact of a fathers assumed control over the daughters choice of a marriage partner. Brabantios admonition to Roderigo implicitly expresses the same message The worser welcome I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors In honest plainness thou hast perceive me say My daughter is not for th... ...on Twayne Publishers, 1985. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Mowat, Barbara A. and Paul Werstine, ed. Introduction. Shakespeare Othello. New York Washington Square Press, 1993. Pitt, Angela. Wom en in Shakespeares Tragedies. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeares Women. N.p. n.p., 1981. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No argument nos. Wayne, Valerie. Historical Differences Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991.