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Analysis of the character of Othello
Othello literary analysis essay on othello the character
Analysis of the story Othello
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The Character of Emilia in Othello
The definition of Renaissance women is fundamentally important in William Shakespeare's play Othello. One of the major causes of Othello's tragedy is his belief that Desdemona is not chaste. According to the men of the Renaissance, chastity, silence, and obedience are three attributes that define Renaissance women. Although Othello takes place during the Renaissance, the women in the play, Bianca, Desdemona and Emilia, defy traditional norms by lacking at least one of the major attributes defining women; Bianca's lack of chastity is clearly displayed when she unlawfully sleeps with Cassio; Desdemona's lack of silence is clearly displayed when she constantly urges Othello to give Cassio's position back. However, in the last two acts, Emilia displays the strongest challenge to the definition of Renaissance women as silent, chaste, and obedient, mainly to defend Desdemona.
First, in order to defend Desdemona's chastity, Emilia challenges the societal norm of silence. Recall the incident when Othello calls Desdemona a "whore" for cheating. In response, Emilia protests loudly against Othello and attempts to disprove his belief that Desdemona is not chaste: "A halter pardon him [Othello]! And hell gnaw his bones! / Why should he call her [Desdemona] whore? (4.2. 143,144). Instead of Emilia conforming to the attribute of Renaissance women as silent, she condemns Othello for his false accusations against her mistress, Desdemona. Later in the play, after finding Desdemona killed, Emilia challenges silence again: "As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-... / The Moor hath killed my mistress!" (5.2. 171,174). Although Othello tells Emilia that it would be "best" for her to remain silent, she ignores his request and ridicules him for killing "sweet" Desdemona (5.2. 169).
Secondly, Emilia mentally challenges the social norm of chastity by condoning women that deceive their husbands. Although Emilia does not explicitly state whether she has ever cheated, she does say that she would not cheat for small, material wealth, but any woman would cheat in order to make her husband king: "Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? (4.3. 77). Furthermore, Emilia explains that the reason women cheat is because their husbands "slack their duties" and "break out into peevish jealousies (4.3. 87, 89). In essence, Emilia accepts the "abuse" of men by women because she feels that it is the husband's flaws that evoke the women to cheat.
Othello is a play that asks us to examine the position of women in society. This play explores issues such as clandestine marriage, accusations of adultery, and it includes three different social classes of women. First, we have Desdemona, this is a woman from a noble family in Venice and has the least amount of freedom. Her behavior was watched very carefully. The perception of Desdemona is created by the language that other characters use to describe her. In Act 2, Scene 1, Cassio refers to Desdemona as ‘a maid/That paragons description and wild fame’; that she
By April of 1915, Villa had set out to destroy Carranzista forces in the Battle of Celaya. The battle was said to be fought with sheer hatred in mind rather than military strategy, resulting in amass loss of the Division del Norte. In October of 1915, after much worry about foreign investments, in the midst of struggles for power, the U.S. recognized Carranza as President of Mexico. When Pancho Vill...
5) When Teddy Roosevelt wanted to build the Panama Canal, Panama was part of Colombia. Colombia refused to sign a treaty with the US allowing us to build the canal because they wanted more money. Roosevelt encouraged Panamanian leaders to revolt and sent a battleship to help them. Once Panama was separate, they signed a treaty with the US agreeing to let us build the canal. Roosevelt actually created a country.
In the novel Othello, written by William Shakespeare, there are a variety of ways in which women are portrayed. There are strong willed women such as Emilia, who stands up to the men, especially to her husband. If he is wrong she would openly admit that he is incorrect. There are also women who are thought to be a possession as well as extremely submissive to their husbands such as Desdemona. She is the type of woman that will obey her husband to the day she dies. Desdemona believes that her husband is always right and he will never do anything that will lead her into the wrong direction. Many of the women in this time thought the same way. They are viewed as house workers, cooks, and teachers to the children. In addition to those qualities women obtain, having no authority in marriages is also added to the list. In this novel, there is judgment against women because they are “unequal” to men. They are not allowed to do the same as men for the reason that they do not possess the same qualities as men. Men were considered to be superior to women. Women were treated as their “slaves.” In contrast, today’s time women now have power. They have the right to vote, run for office, and even work outside their homes. Women now play the part as the male and female figure in the households. They are considered independent women, not relying on a male figure. Even if they are married now, they do not listen to everything that their husbands tell them to do. It states in the Bible that a male figure is the head of the households; however women today have strayed away from that view that they had back then. They want to be the dominate figure. Times have really changed from the past to the present. W...
Pancho Villa was accused of stealing General Victoriano Huerta commander’s horse and was sentenced to death (Pancho Villa, n.d.). President Madero was able to suspend the death sentence but Villa was still imprisoned in 1912 (Pancho Villa, n.d.). Villa would escape imprisonment in December of 1912 and return to the northern territories. On February 22nd 1913 Francisco Madero was assassinated and Victoriano Huerta assumed the presidency. Upon hearing this Pancho Villa returned to the revolution. At the time Pancho Villa was one of the commanders of the formidable north Mexican army known as the Division del Norte (Pancho Villa, n.d.). The conflict on the border caught the attention of many in the United States, including the Hollywood's Mutual Film Company who in 1913 signed a deal with Pancho Villa to film and photograph several of the battles he engaged in. (Pancho Villa, n.d.). Toward the end of 1913, Villa forces recaptured the state of Chihuahua from federal forces in what would be the bloodiest battle of the Mexican Revolution (Johnson,
Among the great peaceful endeavors of mankind that have contributed significantly to progress in the world, the construction of the Canal stands as an awe-inspiring achievement. The idea of a path between North and South America is older than their names.
Emilia, while lying next to her best friend on her deathbed, began to suppress her passive nature and attempts persecute the murderer. Nonetheless, the only woman who stood up for herself got killed in the end by her own husband. Othello and Iago’s wives were thought to be disloyal to their husband, while only one of them was correct in this accusation, Desdemona and Emilia were both murdered by the people they pledged their allegiance to. But, Emilia was the only woman who denounced the authority men had over women and compares the qualities of both men and women. She is fully aware of the gender
The Panama Canal was one of the greatest triumphs and tragedies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The tragedy was that the French were just simply too far ahead of technology, at that time, to complete or even get farther than the very beginning of the Panama Canal. The Americans took over the project after President Theodore Roosevelt's pushing of the Panamanian Revolution. After the Revolution the Americans took control of the canal and continued to build the canal to what it is today. The Panama Canal is one of the largest canals in the world. It consists of three dams, the Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Mira Flores. Despite the limit in ship size the canal is still one of the highest traveled waterways in the world.
The presentation of moral courage leads Emilia’s Speech and Felix’s actions to challenge the social and religious morality of their time. For instance, Emilia’s Speech establishes her cynicism towards men as Shakespeare’s lexical choice of ‘would not’ demonstrates that without the contraction displayed, it highlights Emilia willingly not to ‘marry.’ Therefore, her courage to challenge the social and religious morality of her time establishes that she disobeys with the main principle that “Wives submit/to husbands/the Lord” knowing that marriage is an obligation and her refusal demonstrates that she has “sense like the men.” This is evident as compared to the “Fair” Desdemona who does ‘displease’ men it establishes that she has respect and authority because of Othello. Whereas, Emilia lives in Desdemona’s shadow and has a contradictory personality to which her loyalty is divided,[between Iago and Desdemona] similar but different to Desdemona’s “divided duty” to her husband and father.
The Politics of the Panama Canal are confusing. This confusion includes the building, the economics and the operation of this facility. The canal, began in 1881 and finished in 1914(Dolan 55), has caused one country to fail, another to triumph, and another to gain its independence.
During the Shakespearean time women were treated as inferiors. The three women in Othello, Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca encountered many degrading and unfortunate situations. They were to be obedient. The women had to comply with the commands, orders, and the instructions of the men. Women were made to believe that they had no rights. The men would publicly humiliate the three women. It was difficult for the women to stand up for themselves due to that time in society. In Shakespeare’s play Othello, he portrayed the three women to be viewed as obedient, loyal, and submissive to their husbands.
On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans, and firmly positioned the U.S. as the next global superpower. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where, 15 years earlier, the French had failed disastrously. The U.S. however, paid a cost normally associated with a pyrrhic victory; a decade of ceaseless, grinding toil, an outlay of more than 350 million dollars (the largest single federal expenditure in history to that time), and the loss of more than 5,000 lives. Central America also witnessed the brazen overthrow of a sovereign government, the influx of over 55,000 workers from around the globe, the removal of hundreds of millions of tons of earth, and engineering innovation on an unprecedented scale. The construction of the Canal was the epitome of man's mastery over nature. The result of it completion however meant for the first time there was an international waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, via the Caribbean Ocean. This route simplified the passage of ships between these two bodies of water, by cutting across the Isthmus of Panama. ...
The play Othello is presented as a male-dominated society where women are only recognized as property; objects to own and to bear children. Women in the Elizabethan society and in Shakespeare society were not seen as equal to men and were expected to be loyal to their husbands, be respectful, and to not go against their husbands judgements or actions. Shakespeare presents Desdemona, Emilia , and Bianca as women in the Elizabethan time where they were judged based on their class, mortality, and intelligence. Shakespeare makes his female characters act the way they would be expected to act in an Elizabethan society. The role of these women in Othello is crucial because they show how women were treated and how unhealthy their relationships between men really were in both Elizabethan and Shakespeare's society.
For centurys man has used water as way to get from one place to another very quickly. The Panama Canal is no exception. From around the start of the 16th century people have been trying to find a way to cut a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Many misfortunes and deaths have been sacrificed to obtain this goal. Finally in 1914 the American had completed one of the greatest feats of all time the Panama Canal, cutting a many months journey to nine hours.
The original reason the Panama Canal was planned and built was because of a man named Vasco Nunez de Balboa. The existence of an isthmus, a narrow strip of land with water on each side, between the two great seas was discovered by this Spanish explorer. Balboa, the first European to see the expanse of the Pacific Ocean in 1513, was also the first one to see the possibility of a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Ochoa 78-81). Before the canal project began, the land area was surveyed and the Spanish built a road, The Royal Road, across Panama to connect the two great bodies of water. This road was completed in 1522. Word spread quickly of this and the idea of a canal project to connect the two seas was born. People of many lands began dreaming of building and completing such a canal across Central America. Before a canal would be build a railroad was built during the California gold rush that began in 1849. When gold was discovered in California, thousands of people headed west to dig fortunes for the...