Women In Othello Play
Universal Women’s Suffering
Many women, regardless of age, cultural background, and walk of life, have struggled balancing two duties: a duty to their husband and a duty to themselves. Many women have either had to choose or create a balance between loving and obeying their husbands, or loving and obeying themselves. In his play Othello, Shakespeare recognizes this struggle and demonstrates it through the characters of Desdemona and Emilia. Both serve as foils to the other, with Desdemona ultimately representing loyalty to her husband, and Emilia representing loyalty to the self. However, just as the struggle between husband and self is not clearly defined or solved in each woman, Desdemona and Emilia eventually switch roles. However, these two different women ultimately combine and blend to fulfill the role of a romantic tragic heroine.
Although Desdemona and Emilia are not similar, their differences serve as foils to one another, which come together to fully become a well-rounded romantic tragic heroine. In Act I, Emilia has not been introduced and is not present. However, Desdemona is initially presented as a particularly strong female character who clearly states her loyalty to her husband, explaining, “But here’s my husband; / And so much duty as my mother show’d / To you, preferring you before her father, / So much I challenge that I may profess / Due to the Moor my lord,” (1.3.183). Desdemona explains to her father that she is leaving him, to whom she owes her “life and education,” to be with her husband (1.3.180). Desdemona strongly and decisively chooses her duty to her husband. Although choosing one’s husband is not necessarily bad, Shakespeare uses Desdemona to demonstrate that obsessively choosing one’s husband can be harmful. In contrast, readers and viewers alike are finally introduced to Emilia. Emilia, being Desdemona’s foil, has a completely opposite view on men and husbands, who “are all but stomachs, and we all but food; / They eat us hungerly, and when they are full, / They belch us,” (3.4.98). Emilia does not have as much faith in men and her husband as Desdemona does. She believes men simply use women. Thus, Shakespeare immediately establishes the differences between Desdemona’s trust and devotion to her husband and Emilia’s distrust and dislike of men.
However, as the play progresses, the characters of Desdemona and Emilia begin to switch roles. Once Othello is consumed by jealousy and has decided to punish Desdemona, he ordered her to “Get you to bed on th’instant,” (4.3.7), to which she meekly replies “I will, my lord,” (4.3.10). In contrast, once Emilia finds Desdemona’s body and tries to explain what has happened, her husband orders her to “charge you get you home,” (5.2.193). However, because Desdemona’s and Emilia’s roles have been reversed, and Desdemona is no longer alive and part of the play (just as Emilia was not present in Act I), Emilia must play the role of the strong woman, loyal to herself. She does indeed do, stating, “let me have leave to speak. / ‘Tis proper I obey him, but not now. / Perchance, Iago, I will ne’er go home,” (5.2.194). Emilia is playing the strong female character at the end of the play; however, unlike Desdemona in Act I, she is not choosing her husband, she is choosing her own voice.
Nevertheless, because Shakespeare characterized each woman as the extreme of the universal women struggle, with Desdemona embodying adherence to the husband and Emilia embodying adherence to herself, neither can be successful as they have are not balanced in their struggle. Ironically, each half of the romantic tragic heroine is the downfall of the other. Emilia tells the story of the handkerchief, which she “found by fortune and did give to my husband, / For often, with a solemn earnestness - / More than indeed belong’d to such a trifle - / He begg’d of me to steal it,” (5.2.224). With her exclamation of “O God! O heavenly God!” Emilia recognizes that her thievery of Desdemona’s handkerchief is what made Othello suspicious and jealous, which ultimately led to Desdemona’s murder. However, Desdemona also serves as Emilia’s downfall. Emilia speaks for Desdemona’s death and Iago’s role in it, which enrages her husband, prompting him to kill her. Emilia, “So speaking as [she] think[s]…” for Desdemona, “…die[s]…[dies]s,” (5.2.249). Because these women each represented one side of the struggle between husband and self, they each ultimately fell and failed.
The characters of Desdemona and Emilia serve to represent two different husband and wife relationships. Shakespeare uses these two women to represent the internal struggle that all married women struggle with – the struggle between the duty to the husband and the duty to the self. With both their failures and deaths, Shakespeare is stating that adherence to one aspect is the downfall of the whole. Ultimately, Desdemona and Emilia highlight the tragedy of the play, representing the fall of the romantic tragic heroine, and possibly, the fall of every woman before, and ever since.
