Examine The Way In Which Shakespeare Presents Women In “Othello”
The concept of equality between the sexes would have seemed very foreign to most in Shakespeare's day. It was believed that he created Adam first, and Eve; she was created specifically to give him comfort, and was to be secondary to him, to obey him and to accept her lesser status. A dominant woman was unnatural, and was almost seen as a disease.
We can see that Shakespeare didn’t necessarily believe this, by looking at the role of women in other plays of Shakespeare’s. There are strong women and weak women alike throughout the plays. In “The Merchant Of Venice” for instance, Portia dresses as a man and pretends to be a lawyer, she wins the case she is fighting for and is one of the rare occasions were a Shakespeare play finishes happily. “Maccbeth” also contains a strong woman. Lady Maccbeth bullies her husband into the murder of the king, but turns mad and dies. Ophelia in “Hamlet” on the other-hand is much like Desdemona in “Othello”; she is her husband’s servant almost and ends up drowning herself. All women are on the receiving end from men in the plays, in some way. All die, so it still shows that Shakespeare believed that woman should know their place in society.
