7 ESSAY PLANS IN THIS BUNDLE
Essay plans summarising the key aspects of the many themes that appear in Othello. Includes the themes of jealousy, gender, manipulation, order and choas, passion and the self, race and reputation.
These essay plans feature topic sentences, quotes, critical statem...
Explore how Shakespeare treats the theme of gender in ‘Othello’. You must relate your discussion
to relevant contextual factors and ideas from your critical reading.
Introduction (Topic Sentences):
Gender normalities as a means to keep women in their place and stop them from rebelling.
Normalities- Obedience, respect, subservience.
Women are always secondary to men even if it causes their downfall because they hold little
rank in society- gender causing inequalities.
Women are tools and mechanisms used to precipitate the tragedy; they hold little
significance as individual characters. They are essentially stock characters because their
gender does not allow depth to their character.
Paragraph 1
Point: Gender normalities as a means to keep women in their place and stop them from rebelling.
Normalities- Obedience, respect, subservience.
Quotes: Act 1 Scene 3;Othello: “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she
did pity them”, Act 5 Scene 2;Emilia: “Who hath done this deed?” “Nobody. I myself. Farewell.” Act 5
Scene 2;Desdemona: “O Lord! Lord! Lord!” [He] smothers her.
Critics: S N Garner: “Her willingness to risk the censure of her father and society is some measure of
her capacity for love”, Lisa Jardine: Jardine asserts the view that Desdemona proves to be “too-
knowing, too independent” Aristotle: “The disposition of the female is softer, and more tameable
and submissive”
Context: According to Elizabethan society built on Renaissance beliefs, women were expected to be
silent, chaste and obedient to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and all men in general. Patriarchal
rule justified women’s subordination as the natural order because women were thought to be
physiologically and psychologically inferior to men.
Paragraph 2
Point: Women are always secondary to men even if it causes their downfall because they hold little
rank in society- gender causing inequalities.
Quotes: Othello- “O, my fair warrior”, ‘Iago stabs his wife’, Emilia- “Ay, ay, O lay me by my mistress’
side”, “What should such a fool do with so good a wife?”, “Let husbands know their wives have
sense like them”
Critics: John Knox- Women are “weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish…”, Liz Lewis: Othello is “a
tragedy in which the female is subordinated by the male” “Her identity disappears as Othello’s
jealousy becomes more defined.”
Context: Chain of being- Hierarchical chain on which every creature appeared in its ordained
position on a ladder descending from God through angel, King, man and woman to animal, vegetable
and finally mineral.
, Emilia may have resigned herself to a sour, abusive relationship, but in Desdemona she finds a cause
worth defending, a pure wife whose worth needs fighting for. She is devoted to her mistress and
stoutly defends her innocence to Othello.
Some modern feminist critics see Desdemona as a hideous embodiment of the downtrodden
woman. Suffice it to say, there is a large body of evidence to support this critical stance. Desdemona
herself declares that ‘I am obedient’ continuing to obey Othello’s orders from the early ‘happy’
phase of their relationship through to the later stages of his jealous ravings. Even when he orders
Desdemona to go to her bed towards the end of Act IV, she still replies with the submissive ‘I will, my
lord’. In her final breath she still remains true to her husband saying ‘Commend me to my kind lord’
and providing Othello with an alibi that he does not use. She appears to have completely accepted
her role as subordinate and obedient wife.
Paragraph 3
Point: Women are tools and mechanisms used to precipitate the tragedy; they hold little significance
as individual characters. They are essentially stock characters because their gender does not allow
depth to their character.
Quotes: “My wayward husband hath a hundred times wooed me to steal it” “A good wrench, give it
me” “Be not Acknown on’t. I have use for it. Go, leave me.”
Critics: Vogel- Othello is “male centred”, Marilyn French- Desdemona “accepts her culture’s dictum
that she must be obedient to males”.
Context: The feelings of Desdemona and Emilia are completely disregarded in Iago’s plotting. The
fact that women, in both Elizabethan and Venetian society are perceived as possessions, secondary
to the lofty plans and desires of men.
Marriageability was most women’s only avenue of power, the goal being to secure family wealth and
male protection. In order to achieve this, women needed simultaneously to be sexually attractive yet
chaste and modest (although coming from a wealthy background could override the first
consideration). Once married, it was axiomatic that wives should obey their husbands, and be
honoured by them in return. After a wife had provided an heir for her husband, she was truly secure.
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