The William Shakespeare tragedy Othello features various types of love, but none compare to the love we find between the protagonist and his wife. In this essay let us examine “love” as found in the play.
In her book, Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard Mack comments on the love that exists between the hero and heroine:
Magical in my view, though I know how far opinions differ on this point, as a way of asking us to recognize that the love these lovers share before Iago’s corruption sets in does indeed have magic in its web, contains a “work” (3.3.296) that a relationship like Cassio’s and Bianca’s can never match or “take out,” commands a power that sets it as far above the commonplace as Desdemona is in the radiant generosity and innocence that makes her vulnerable, as Othello is in the “free and open nature” (1.3.393) that makes him vulnerable, and in the courage and determination to do justice on himself that earns the closing accolade: “For he was great of heart” (5.2.361). (131)
In similar fashion, Lily B. Campbell in Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes indicates the perfect type of love emanating from both the heroine and the general:
The simple and noble love of Othello and Desdemona is known to us all, but it must be noted that Desdemona, like Cordelia, loves both her father and her husband in reason. [. . .] That her love is the perfect love which philosophers found to blend the love of body and of mind is evident [. . .] That Othello’s love too is a love that is noble and perfect is evident in his simple:
She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I lov’d her that she did pity them. (155)
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…ngs on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare: The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p.: n.p., 1970.
Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Mack, Maynard. Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Pitt, Angela. “Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint 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.
Custom Written Term Papers: The Role of Women in Othello
The Role of Women in Othello
At the beginning of Othello two men stand and discuss the fate of a woman. One contested for her and lost and the other willingly admits to her beauty, charm and worth. Both men wish to bring down the man who has won her, Desdemona, and slander her name nonetheless. This man, their rival and superior is none other than Othello. Othello has managed to obtain something they could not; Desdemona. Throughout the play Desdemona is rarely viewed as a human being, she is merely a prize, and from the very beginning Desdemona is an object of lust. Emilia and Bianca are also mistreated in this way.
The three women in the play; Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca contrast in class. Desdemona is born from a high-class Venetian family, Emilia is from a servant class and Bianca is a prostitute or “whore”, a word that Desdemona refuses to use. Despite this they are all abused by men and are objects of men’s sexuality, and they all suffer under the cruel hands of those whom they love. Each one is shown in relation to a particular man, (Othello, Iago and Cassio) and is contrasted with the other women, which reveal how the stereotypical version of womanhood impacts their lives, (in Desdemona and Emilia’s case, their deaths). The three women’s eventual destinies are interlinked with the plays central symbol: the handkerchief.
Women are major characters in Shakespeare’s plays. In “Othello” women are …
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…e: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Muir, Kenneth. Introduction. William Shakespeare: Othello. New York: Penguin Books, 1968.
Neely, Carol. “Women and Men in Othello” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s Othello. Ed. Anthony G. Barthelemy Pub. Macmillan New York, NY 1994. (page 68-90)
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 Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.