Gender Bias in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

Sexual orientation Bias in Othelloâ â â   â â Shakespeare’s sad play Othello is a disastrous case of sexual orientation predisposition, of sexism which exploits ladies. The three ladies characters in the dramatization are all, in their own particular manners, casualties of men’s slanted perspectives in regards to ladies. Let us dig into this point in this paper.  Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine remark in the Introduction to Shakespeare: Othello that sexism is a major factorâ in the play:  Now in our human advancement the play’s interest and its shock might be more prominent than at any other time since we have been made so extremely delicate to the issues of race, class, and sexual orientation that are woven into the surface of Othello. [. . .] The issue of sexual orientation is particularly perceptible in the last scenes of the play †with the assaults on Bianca, Emilia, and Desdemona †which are striking tokens of how horrible the force generally applied by men over ladies can be. (xiii-xiv)  In the initial scene, while Iago is communicating his disdain for the general Othello for his having picked Michael Cassio for the lieutenancy, he thinks up an arrangement to in part retaliate for himself (â€Å"I tail him to serve my chance upon him†), with Roderigo’s help, by cautioning Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, to the reality of his daughter’s elopement with Othello: â€Å"Call up her dad,/Rouse him: make after him, poison his pleasure [. . .].† Implied in this move is the reality of a father’s expected command over the daughter’s decision of a marriage accomplice. Brabantio’s advice to Roderigo certainly communicates a similar message:  The worser welcome:  â â â I have charged thee not to frequent about my entryways:  â â â In fair conventionality thou hast heard me state  â â â My girl isn't for th... ...on: Twayne Publishers, 1985.  Mack, Maynard. Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.  Mowat, Barbara A. furthermore, Paul Werstine, ed. Presentation. Shakespeare: Othello. New York: Washington Square Press, 1993.  Pitt, Angela. â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reproduce from Shakespeare’s 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. â€Å"Historical Differences: Misogyny and Othello.† The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Â