Shakespeare's Presentation of Women in 'Othello' Anonymous 12th Grade

Throughout ‘Othello’, Shakespeare deliberately engineers male-female relationships to show an imbalance of power. Be it Bianca, who has no power as a courtesan in a patriarchal society, a mere “bauble” with which to play; Emilia, a woman weakened through emotional maltreatment and domestic abuse at the hands of men; or, most importantly, Desdemona, with whom Shakespeare conforms tragic conventions to suggest her subversion of gender is what drives her to her death.

In Act One, Scene One, Iago serves a very clear dramatic purpose: to remind the Jacobean audience that, whilst this play is set in the cosmopolitan land of Venice, where trade is plentiful and women are sexually promiscuous, women are treated essentially the same in most patriarchal societies, be they Catholic Italy or Protestant England (or even Northern Africa, it seems by the play’s end). Warning Brabantio that his daughter has eloped, Iago uses metaphor, proclaiming “an old black ram is tupping your white ewe”. On a first viewing, for example to the audience, who have little time over which to consider dialogue when consuming this -temporal- play, the adjective “white” portrays Desdemona as comme-il-faut, with color symbolism connoting ideas of a chaste and...