Exploring Gender Roles In A Midsummer Night's Dream

As Laura Numeroff’s popular children’s book says, “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk.” Throughout William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello, the topics of love and hate are expressed throughout the drama. Through murderous doings and villainous manipulations of the soul, Shakespeare’s play accentuates the wrongdoings of human nature and their role within daily lives of couples of all statuses. Additionally explored is the idea that, as directly stated within Shakespeare’s play Midsummer Night’s Dream, “the course of true love never did run smooth” (I.i.5) In other words, love never works out, no matter how hard a pairing works at it, due to the corruption of humanity and their nefarious wants and desires. This

Within Iago and Emilia’s relationship, the main discrepancy is the gender roles set by Iago about women and their role in society. After Iago’s wife arrives at shore on Cyprus, Iago immediately begins downgrading her and attacking her actions. Even the act of kissing another man as greeting, a common gesture during Shakespeare’s time, is criticized and twisted to make Emilia appear as a lowly talkative whore. Eventually, Iago begins to describe the perfect wife to Emilia and Desdemona, in which he states, “[the perfect wife] would suckle fools and chronicle small beer” (II.i. 25). In other words, Iago states that a women should stay home with the children and tend to housework. However, women, according to Iago, are instead “pictures out of doors,/ Bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens,/ Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,/ Player’s in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds” (II. i. 24). Instead of being good housewives, Iago alternatively believes women are ineffective, noisy, a distraction, and slutty. Because of this social barrier against his wife and his ideal women, Iago would never be able to efficaciously love Emilia to the extent she loves him. This demonstrates that no matter what people have in in front of them, people are naturally greedy and want more than what’s given to them to work

Within the play, Iago’s master plan is to kill Desdemona and Cassio in order to get his job back. However, in order to do this, Iago convinces Othello that his lovely wife Desdemona is cuckolding him with his lieutenant Cassio. After manipulating and working in his unscrupulous ways, Iago properly convinces Othello that Desdemona has been cheating on him, despite the fact that Desdemona is, in fact, innocent. In a fit of raging mania, Othello bursts into fury and cries, “I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her” (III.iii.48). With the belief that he is a horned man, Othello reverts into despising his loving wife as he sees no other way to accept what has been- wrongfully and inaccurately- revealed to him. Without wrath blinding Othello to conclude something wildly inaccurate, the seemingly unusual but almost perfect couple could have lasted for eternity. However, Othello decides that the only rational way to deal with his, unbeknown to him, made up problem is it permanently get rid of Desdemona by terminating her life. Yet, it’s mortal weakness to let passion conceal logic in fits of rage. Additionally, jealousy, another characteristic damnation, topples relationships. Within act III, Othello implores Desdemona to immediately fetch his handkerchief, as