Essay on Analyses of Race and Gender Issues in...

Analyses of Race and Gender Issues in Othello The discussion of race in Shakespeares Othello has received a great deal of critical attention. Virginia Mason Vaughn, in her book Othello: A Contextual History, surveys this critical history, beginning with Marvin Rosenbergs 1961 book The Masks of Othello (a book documenting the nineteenth-century tendency toward representing Othello as light-skinned), and continuing through to Jack DAmicos 1991 book The Moor in English Renaissance Drama. According to Vaughan herself, The effect of Othello depends . . . on the essential fact of the heros darkness, the visual signifier of his Otherness (51). Arthur L. Little, Jr., in his article An essence thats not seen: The Primal†¦show more content†¦The discourses of Renaissance misogyny can be seen clearly in such pamphlets as Joseph Swetnams The Araignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Vnconstatnt Women (1616): For women have a thousand ways to entise thee, and ten thousand waies to deceiue thee (15); they lay out the foldes of their hai re, to entangle men into their loue; betwixt their brests is the vale of destruction, in their beds there is hell, sorrow repentance (16); Eagles eat not men till they are dead, but women deuoure them aliue: for a woman will pick thy pocket, and empty thy purse, laugh in thy face and cut thy throat (16); They will play the horse-leach to suck away thy wealth, but in the winter of thy misery shee will flie away from thee (16). Women are here figured as deceiving, dishonest, and dangerous creatures concerned solely with the entrapment and destruction of men. They are portrayed as uncontrollable. The concern over the sexual fidelity of women-in reality a concern for masculine control over feminine sexuality-is reflected in John Raynolds A Defence of the Ivdgement of the Reformed Churches (1610): the truth deliverd by our Saviour Christ alloweth hime whose wife commiteth fornication, to put her away, and to marrie another (2); it is lawfull for him who hath put away his wife for whore dome to marrie another (3). I do not mean to imply that Renaissance discourses concerning women are exclusively misogynistic; RaynoldsShow MoreRelatedThe Oppression of Women in A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf1749 Words   |  7 Pagesa pillar of the British Empire, instrumental to the institutions that boasted British superiority. It is evident throughout Woolf’s writing that Shakespeare’s works were highly influential. Her novels frequently allude to his plays, most notably Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway, and also in her famous essay, A Room of One’s Own. Though Woolf admires Shakespeare’s androgyny (specifically in A Room of One’s Own), she also makes the case that his treatment of female characters does not allow for the women toRead MoreAnalysis Of Shakespeare s King Lear, Hamlet, Othello And Macbeth1206 Words   |  5 Pagesattraction for the audience. A Shakespearean tragedy, is a five-act play and they usually revolve around a similar idea of conflict. Thi s is the Internal and external Conflict within the character. The four plays I have chosen to analyse are; King Lear, Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth. I chose these plays specifically because they all have universal themes which depict human emotions. They contain very important messages about internal and external conflict within characters and how this conflict can