Download or read book A feminist critique of the character Desdemona in Shakespeares Othello written by Rubina Mandokhail and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: This eassy offers an feminist analysis of the literary character of Desdemona from William Shakespeare's "Othello."
Download or read book Othello A feminist Shakespeare and a drama about a handkerchief written by Silvia Alpers and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2004-10-07 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2- (B-), University of Göttingen (English Seminar), language: English, abstract: This work deals with Shakespeare’s play Othello with regard to feminism. It will analyse the female characters and their relation to men and society. Furthermore it will try to find out if Shakespeare was a feminist or not, if he created feministic women and if he supported the idea of equal rights. Additionally, the paper will look at the handkerchief as a stage prop and as a symbol with a wider meaning. How did Shakespeare use its symbolism? First of all, this work will give a short overview over feminism, its definition, its historical development and its relation to Shakespeare. The following chapter deals with the play Othello in connection with feminism. Can Othello be interpreted from a feminist point of view? What symbols did Shakespeare use? Here the handkerchief is of special interest. Finally, the conclusion will summarize the findings and give results. In order to give a broad view of meanings and feministic reviews this paper works with secondary literature from 1775 to 2000 to show how opinions changed, respectively how they remained the same. Moreover it includes books about feminism in general and books about Shakespeare’s plays and feminism.
Download or read book Feminist Criticism written by Sara Ekici and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Kassel (Fachbereich für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften), course: Schakespeare, language: English, abstract: Female characters play an important role for the dramatic run of events in Shakespeare's plays. Just as in reality, women of Shakespeare's dramas have been bound to rules and conventions of the patriarchal Elizabethan era. Therefore, it was very common back in Elizabethan England to compel woman into marriages in order to receive power, legacy, dowry or land in exchange. Even though the Queen herself was an unmarried woman, the roles of woman in society were extremely restricted. Single women have been the property of their fathers and handed over to their future husbands through marriage. In Elizabethan time, women were considered as the weaker sex and dangerous, because their sexuality was supposedly mystic and therefore feared by men. Women of that era were supposed to represent virtues like obedience, silence, sexual chastity, piety, humility, constancy, and patience. All these virtues, of course, have their meaning in relationship to men. The role allocation in Elizabethan society was strictly regulated; men were the breadwinners and woman had to be obedient housewives and mothers. However, within this deprived, tight and organized scope, women have been represented in most diverse ways in Shakespearean Drama. The construction of female characters in Shakespeare's plays reflects the Elizabethan image of woman in general. For all that, Shakespeare supports the English Renaissance stereotypes of genders, their roles and responsibilities in society, he also puts their representations into question, challenges, and also revises them.
Download or read book Feminist Criticism Female Characters in Shakespeare s Plays Othello and Hamlet written by Sara Ekici and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-11-04 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Kassel (Fachbereich für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften), course: Schakespeare, language: English, abstract: Female characters play an important role for the dramatic run of events in Shakespeare’s plays. Just as in reality, women of Shakespeare’s dramas have been bound to rules and conventions of the patriarchal Elizabethan era. Therefore, it was very common back in Elizabethan England to compel woman into marriages in order to receive power, legacy, dowry or land in exchange. Even though the Queen herself was an unmarried woman, the roles of woman in society were extremely restricted. Single women have been the property of their fathers and handed over to their future husbands through marriage. In Elizabethan time, women were considered as the weaker sex and dangerous, because their sexuality was supposedly mystic and therefore feared by men. Women of that era were supposed to represent virtues like obedience, silence, sexual chastity, piety, humility, constancy, and patience. All these virtues, of course, have their meaning in relationship to men. The role allocation in Elizabethan society was strictly regulated; men were the breadwinners and woman had to be obedient housewives and mothers. However, within this deprived, tight and organized scope, women have been represented in most diverse ways in Shakespearean Drama. The construction of female characters in Shakespeare’s plays reflects the Elizabethan image of woman in general. For all that, Shakespeare supports the English Renaissance stereotypes of genders, their roles and responsibilities in society, he also puts their representations into question, challenges, and also revises them.
Download or read book Othello written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Desdemona written by Toni Morrison and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-06-13 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This is a remarkable, challenging and bravely original work.' The Guardian Ripped from the world by her husband's paranoia, Desdemona turns in death towards the memory of Barbary, the North African maid who raised her: together, they explore the contours of death, race, war, love and motherhood, in a moving elegy. Audacious with ambition, Desdemona is Toni Morrison's intimate reimagining of the fourth act of Shakespeare's Othello, mixing monologue with Rokia Traore's lyrical songs to re-examine the Bard's presentation of race and female suffering. Part-play, part-concert, part-quest into the afterlife, Desdemona is published in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, featuring a new introduction by Joyce Green MacDonald.
Download or read book Tragic Patriarchy The Misogynist Side of Shakespeare in Hamlet and Othello written by Kathrin Köhler and published by diplom.de. This book was released on 2004-11-19 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: Was Shakespeare a misogynist ? Or was he, on the contrary, an early advocate of female equality ? Were his plays manifests of patriarchy, of the dominance of men over women and of typical stereotypes ? Or were they, like other critics have argued, just the opposite? Was he a "feminist in sympathy", as Juliet Dusinberre has argued, or was he the patriarchal bard many others see in him ? In how far were his views about the sexes influenced by the conceptions of gender in the Elizabethan time - and did he support, question or even reject them ? These were the questions I had in mind when I started working on this thesis paper. After dealing with both Shakespeare and feminism in the course of my studies, an evaluation of Shakespeare's attitude towards women seemed very interesting. The attraction that Shakespeare combined with feminism has, and the necessity of such criticism, has often been discussed. The following quote is rather long, but perfectly expresses my own interest in the topic. "Feminist critics of Shakespeare must use the strategies and insights of this new criticism selectively, for they examine a male dramatist of extraordinary range writing in a remote period when women's position was in obvious ways more restricted and less disputed than our own. Acknowledging this, feminist critics also recognize that the greatest artists do not necessarily duplicate in their art the orthodoxies of their culture; they may exploit them to create character or intensify conflict; they may struggle with, criticise or transcend them. Shakespeare, it would seem, encompasses more and preaches less than most authors; hence the centuries-old controversy over his religious affiliation, political views, and sexual preferences. His attitudes towards women are equally complex and demand attention." The fact that all major female characters have to die in Hamlet as well as in Othello is what first brought me to assess these two plays. I believe that even without an in-depth analysis of the plays the excessive murdering of women shows that Shakespeare's attitude towards them is in some way troubled. I was worried that this would be too trivial a starting point, but other critics have had the same idea: "And, as has been noted, the women in the tragedies almost invariably are destroyed, or are absent from the new order consolidated at the conclusions." The more I dealt with this vast topic, however, the more complicated it became. The [...]
Download or read book But I do think it is their husbands faults If wives do fall A gender studies approach to William Shakespeare s The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice written by Maximilian Bauer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Würzburg (Neuphilologisches Institut), course: Shakespeare’s Tragedies, language: English, abstract: This seminar paper is trying to display some designated motifs of gender studies and wants to give an overview of how such an approach to Shakespeare’s "Othello" can be made. Approaching Shakespeare’s works under the aspect of gender studies might not been originally intended by the author, however it provides multiple chances of interpretations and varieties of looking at the text. This is why in this seminar paper the literary theory of gender studies will be implemented on Shakespeare’s "The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice". Firstly a theoretical approach to Gender Studies is going to lead the way into this paper with an explanation of the main aspects of the Gender Studies theory and why it was chosen for this work. This will be followed by a focus on depictions of women and men and the gender related differences shown in the play. Furthermore a close look on the main characters namely Othello and Iago being the most important male characters and on the other hand Emilia and Desdemona as the main female characters in the play is taken. Main issues discussed are how the characters fit their role in society, female obedience and silence in contrast to male dominance and the need to act as. Also will these main themes be put in contrast with the plot and its development to see the impact of the characters and their gender related behaviour towards it. This will lead to a final analysis of how gender does influence the plot of the tragedy "Othello" and its outcome. The characters’ downfalls that in the end lead to the tragic resolution is being discussed from a view of gender studies theory. The analysis shows how gender influences Shakespeare’s drama in detail, which changes the characters go through with the progression of the plot and gives a short explanation of how these issues could be so fatal for the characters that die in the play.
Download or read book A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare written by Dympna Callaghan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question is not whether Shakespeare studies needs feminism, but whether feminism needs Shakespeare. This is the explicitly political approach taken in the dynamic and newly updated edition of A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare. Provides the definitive feminist statement on Shakespeare for the 21st century Updates address some of the newest theatrical andcreative engagements with Shakespeare, offering fresh insights into Shakespeare’s plays and poems, and gender dynamics in early modern England Contributors come from across the feminist generations and from various stages in their careers to address what is new in the field in terms of historical and textual discovery Explores issues vital to feminist inquiry, including race, sexuality, the body, queer politics, social economies, religion, and capitalism In addition to highlighting changes, it draws attention to the strong continuities of scholarship in this field over the course of the history of feminist criticism of Shakespeare The previous edition was a recipient of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title award; this second edition maintains its coverage and range, and bringsthe scholarship right up to the present day
Download or read book Desdemona written by Paula Vogel and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 1994 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORY: Having slept with Othello's entire encampment, Desdemona revels in her bawdy tales of conquest. Her foils and rapt listeners are the other integral and re-imagined women of this Shakespeare tragedy: Emilia, Desdemona's servant and the wi
Download or read book I will speak as liberal as the north Feminist Readings of Shakespeare s Othello written by Greta Kubitzek and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1.0, University of Cologne (Institute of Media Culture and Theatre), course: Shakespeare, language: English, abstract: Feminist critics have been analysing how women and society are represented in Shakespeare's plays for several decades, and most of them have come to the conclusion that their portrayal is far from modern feminist ideals. According to Gerlach, Almasy and Daniel, “women [in Shakespeare] as the feminine represented the following virtues which, importantly, have their meaning in relationship to the male; obedience, silence, sexual chastity, piety, humility, constancy, and patience” (Gerlach et al.1996). This Elizabethan conception that women are supposed to be reticent is certainly also apparent in Othello, for instance when Brabantio describes Desdemona as “A maiden never bold of spirit,/ So still and quiet” (Act I Scene 3, 94-95). Brabantio considers his daughter's reluctant and modest nature her most admirable quality, and is thus deeply distraught when discovering that she has acted against his will. Since she is a woman, he expects her to always be obedient to him as her father and authoritative patriarch and is unable to understand “that will confess perfection so would err/ Against all rules of nature” (Act I Scene 3, 99-100). In Brabantio's understanding, women are inherently submissive and he interprets any contrary behaviour to be illogical. Nowadays, gender theorists like Judith Butler have established that gender and the role expectations associated with the sexes are actually a construct of society and not biologically predefined (Butler 1999, 174). Therefore, we cannot assume that being quiet and reserved are female qualities or that assertiveness in women is unnatural – it merely does not fit the stereotypical, unfounded conception of femininity people have in their minds. This essay aims to analyse the patriarchal system and notions of femininity depicted in Act I Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Othello. Using Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists as a basis for comparison, it will also ask the question if these notions still prevail today and how our understanding of gender and the role of women in society has changed.
Download or read book The Character of Desdemona A Comparison of William Shakespeare s Othello and Thomas D Rice s Otello written by Julie Dillenkofer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2016-01-18 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 2,3, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: The First Century of US-American Drama, language: English, abstract: In this paper, I will compare the character of Desdemona in the play "Othello" by Shakespeare with that in the burlesque opera "Otello" by Rice. I will first analyze the figure of Desdemona in Shakespeare’s play and then in Rice’s opera – one after another. Next, I will compare the two characters of Desdemona and will explore in which ways their qualities coin-cide, or rather, in what extent they differ in their personalities. Lastly, I will briefly summarize the different characters of Desdemona in both "Othello" and "Otello". William Shakespeare’s "Othello" portrays the mixed-race love between Desdemona, a white Venetian beauty, and the Moor Othello, Venice’s general. Mislead by Iago, his ensign and also the play’s villain, Othello develops an unfounded suspicion of his wife Desdemona and his lieu-tenant Cassio, which results not only in Othello’s suicide, but also in the murder of his wife who, as it turns out, has been innocent of adultery all along. The tragedy thus represents love and good on the one hand (embodied by Desdemona) and the involved problem of jealousy and revenge (personified by Othello) – not least the issue of miscegenation – on the other hand. As many of Shakespeare’s works (which usually are adaptations themselves), "Othello", first performed in 1606, has been the basis for numerous subsequent adaptations, such as the burlesque opera by Thomas D. Rice of 1844. The opera’s plot is essentially similar to that of the play by Shakespeare, yet a few changes have been made. In Rice’s parody, Otello and Desdemona have a child and Shakespeare’s handkerchief has become a common towel. Yet the most conspicuous alteration is Desdemona’s resurrection after being killed at the end of the play. Apart from that, it appears that the two characters of Desdemona in both "Othello" and "Otello" are quite alike. Depicted as a rather subordinate role in both the play and the opera, as compared to her husband and the title character Othello/Otello, Desdemona actually portrays the heroine in both stories. Both become victims of their husbands’ jealousy and finally have to die despite being innocent. When taking a closer look, however, it becomes apparent that the two characters are not that comparable in their personality as initially seems to be the case. In fact, they both gradually reveal themselves as rather different people.
Download or read book Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet Play written by Ann-Marie MacDonald and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is an exuberant comedy and feminist revisioning of Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet. It takes us from a dusty office in Canada’s Queen’s University, into the fraught and furious worlds of two of Shakespeare’s best-known tragedies, and turns them upside-down. Constance Ledbelly is the beleaguered “spinster” academic, and unlikely heroine who embarks on a quest for Shakespearean origins and, ultimately, her own identity. When she deciphers an ancient and neglected manuscript, Constance is propelled through a very modern rabbit hole and lands smack in the middle of the tragic turning points of each play in turn. Her attempts to save first Desdemona, then Juliet, from their harrowing fates, result in a wild unpredictable ride through comedy and near-tragedy, as mild-mannered Constance learns to love, sword-fight, dance Renaissance-style, and master a series of disguises… Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) a gender-bendy, big-hearted and crazily intelligent romp, where irony and anger sing in perfect harmony with innocence and poignancy.
Download or read book The Feminism of Uncertainty written by Ann Snitow and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Feminism of Uncertainty brings together Ann Snitow’s passionate, provocative dispatches from forty years on the front lines of feminist activism and thought. In such celebrated pieces as "A Gender Diary"—which confronts feminism’s need to embrace, while dismantling, the category of "woman"—Snitow is a virtuoso of paradox. Freely mixing genres in vibrant prose, she considers Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, and Dorothy Dinnerstein and offers self-reflexive accounts of her own organizing, writing, and teaching. Her pieces on international activism, sexuality, motherhood, and the waywardness of political memory all engage feminism’s impossible contradictions—and its utopian hopes.
Download or read book This Is Shakespeare written by Emma Smith and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An electrifying new study that investigates the challenges of the Bard’s inconsistencies and flaws, and focuses on revealing—not resolving—the ambiguities of the plays and their changing topicality A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn’t tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant. In This Is Shakespeare, Emma Smith—an intellectually, theatrically, and ethically exciting writer—takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd (the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day), flirting with and skirting around the cutthroat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval, and technological change. Smith writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity, and sex. Instead of offering the answers, the Shakespeare she reveals poses awkward questions, always inviting the reader to ponder ambiguities.
Download or read book Active Agents Or Passive Instruments Female Characters in William Shakespeare s Othello written by Wiebke Pietzonka and published by . This book was released on 2013-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Shakespeare`s Tragedies, language: English, abstract: "And have not we affections? / Desires for sport? and frailty, as men have? / Then let them use us well: else let them know, / The ills we do, their ills instruct us so." (Shakespeare 4.3.100-103) This emancipated statement by Emilia in William Shakespeare`s tragedy "Othello" already could lead to assume that there is far more to the female characters in the play than just the role of the loving wife or the accessory part for the male ones. However, it is mostly Iago and his schemes or Othello and his tragic fate that are in the centre of the reader`s attention rather than the characters of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. Iago being unique for the Shakespearean villain and Othello as the personification for the tragedy of jealousy are, to a certain extent, pushing back the female figures to a background position in the people`s general perception of "Othello". After all, the women in the play are `worth a second glance`, since only a closer reading can really reveal the whole importance and the subtle power of women in the play, albeit in the background of it. The aim of this paper is to show the function of the female figures in "Othello" and, in this context, to prove their importance for the tragedy`s development. Therefore, I will first analyze the characters of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca as a basis for a closer look at their function in the plot of "Othello" afterwards. In this context, it is important to say that I will not focus on every facet of the characters but only on the aspects that are significant ones for each and for the further examination. Concerning Desdemona`s, Emilia`s and Bianca`s function in the play, I will investigate in which ways they contribute to the development of the plot. Are they active or passiv
Download or read book Racism Misogyny and the Othello Myth written by Celia R. Daileader and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A discussion of inter-racial sexual relations in Anglo-American literature from the English Renaissance to today.
