Gender Bias in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

Gender Bias in Othello Shakespeares tragic play Othello is an unfortunate example of sexuality bias, of sexism which takes advantage of women. The three women characters in the drama 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 factor in the play At this point in our civilization the plays fascination and its horror may be greater than ever before because we have been made so very sensitive to the issues of race, class, and gender that are twist into the texture of Othello. . . . The issue of gender is especially noticeable 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 hatred for the general Othell o for his having chosen Michael Cassio for the lieutenancy, he contrives a plan to partially avenge himself (I follow him to serve my turn upon him), with Roderigos assistance, by alerting Desdemonas father, Brabantio, to the fact of his daughters elopement with Othello Call up her father, / Rouse him make by and by 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 heard 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 full-strength Press, 1993. Pitt, Angela. Women in Shakespeares T ragedies. 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 line nos. Wayne, Valerie. Historical Differences Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist critical review of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991.