gender

• Women caged by the Madonna whore complex, Bianca is haunted by her reputation as a “strumpet” but Cassio is allowed to consort with her
• Desdemona’s independence terrifies Iago, describing her as Othello’s “general”, saying “she may make, unmake, do what she list… with his weak function”. Iago almost replaces this submissive wife role by saying to Othello “I am your own forever”, contrasting how Desdemona is able to “play the god” with him.
• Helen Gardner: Desdemona is “love’s martyr” and Othello can only love her again in death
• “They [men] are all but stomachs, and we all but food” Emilia
• Samuel Coleridge: Othello kills Desdemona because of “moral indignation and regret” that her virtue has been destroyed
• Othello sees himself as an “honourable murderer” by protecting her virtue
• Desdemona is defined as Brabantio’s “jewel”, “a maiden never bold of spirit” yet she submits to Othello: “My heart’s subdued even to the very quality of my lord”. She is forced to defend her virtue by saying “by heaven you do me wrong”
• Marriage teaches Desdemona that “men are not gods”, yet EAJ Honigman claims her last words are an “act of forgiveness”
• Iago oxymoronic treatment of Emilia spans from calling her a “foolish wife” and “a good wench”. When he chastises her he calls her “villanous whore” or “filth”
• Young wives were viewed as the root cause of cuckoldry, which threw primogeniture into disarray as illegitimate sons couldn’t be integrated into lines of succession.
• “Shakespeare represents in Othello the reality of women- their wholeness- in high contrast to the fragmented notions of them held by men” Evelyn Gajowski
• Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca are “a spectrum of female mores” Virginia Vaughan