The Role Of Women In Utopia And — страница 4

  • Просмотров 421
  • Скачиваний 6
  • Размер файла 20
    Кб

appears to apply solely to ancient widows but still is possibly more advanced than the Catholic Church today. Of course, More’s image of women would have been heavily influenced by his deep involvement in the monastic life. More’s own experience with women could also have affected his opinions. His mother died when he was six. More’s utopia is disturbed by adulterers and sexual coveting but he appears to not blame either gender for this, unlike many others in the 1500’s who would consider women to be the temptresses leading good men astray. Other contemporary monks like Doni’s version of Utopia would have had more restrictive ideas regarding a woman’s place in a perfect world, they being quartered in a separate district. In Othello the prostituting of Desdemona is not

as base; all of it is Iago’s lies. In “Othello”, a man seeking to increase his own fortunes compromises the virtue of a young woman. Iago tells Desdemona’s father that Othello is taking advantage of Desdemona. The statement is a total lie, however, as Othello and Desdemona are very much in love and very much married, it is a case of “Framed to make women false”-Ibid. Also, Desdemona had never done harm and was always kind to Iago and his wife. Instead of putting a good man beside a bad man to illustrate goodness (Othello next to Iago), Deviant women are also associated with a black presence, invariably male. Most of the actual strife in the play is caused by men, in that they are the one’s most intent on causing trouble. Iago encourages Roderigo to rouse Brabantio,

Desdamona’s father, and tell him of her elopement with Othello. Iago makes the announcement as alarming and disruptive as possible. Othello’s paranoia on Desdemona’s possible unfaithfulness is sparked off by Brabantio’s Othello that if Desdemona deceived her father she could also be false to her husband. Therefore, it could be said that Brabianto’s actions in some way led to his daughter’s death. It was also Iago’s embezzlement of Othello’s handkerchief (a family heirloom passed on from his mother that he had given to Desdemona), his subsequent planting of it in Cassio’s rooms and his urging of Othello to ask for it that caused the amount of suspicion that caused Othello to kill Desdemona. Even Othello at the end sees that he was nothing less than a murderer and

that his wife was always faithful to him. Othello has been given attention from feminist critics who have challenged its position at the bottom of Bradley’s hierarchy of major tragedies. Women appear to be regarded as slightly less important in “Othello”. To quote Alan Sinfield’s book “Hamlet’s special providence”, the play has been called a “domestic tragedy”, which in “masculinist criticism” implies a downgraded species of tragedy. To downgrade this is slightly inappropriate for a story about a murder of a beautiful white heiress, or for any murder in today’s society, the term domestic would cause outrage. Also, King Lear is possibly less exotic but has not been labelled that way. It is possible that Othello has had little experience in dealing with

women/anyone besides from other black men. He is a military man who understands soldiering and politics, but is easily confused in his dealings with Desdemona and Iago. He is uncertain about interpreting the actions and words of women and of all people from different cultures. Hopefully, in this essay, I have given some sort of idea what the life of a woman in Shakespeare/More 16th century England (or in More’s literary Utopia, which was obviously influenced by the world he lived in). I feel there were certainly false expectations of women at the time and their life appeared to be organised from when they were born (which makes Desdemona’s independent stance on marriage all the more daring). There were several unwritten rules for women at the time and a lot of

stereotypification, neither, of which Desdemona fitted in easily with. She didn’t exactly follow the rules but she wasn’t a stereotypical rebellious woman either due to marrying a black man much older than she marries. Woman definitely play an important role in “Othello” though, even if they aren’t onstage a lot of the time, they seem to hold the moral high ground in the play. I feel it is a insult to call the play a “domestic tragedy” due to it’s exoticness and the demeaning of a murder which calling it “domestic” basically amounts to. Thomas More appears more concerned about humans than gender but still treats them specially in some ways, mainly protecting them or making life easier for them (if they’re pregnant). While, this protecting of women from the