The play Othello their are three women Bianca, Desdemona & Emilia please read on I need help!?

Question

I need to know 2 things
1) What is Shakespear (spelling sucks) trying to accomplish through these characters?
2) What is he saying about women?

And I also need quotes from the story to help me support me answers HELP !!!

Answer 1

Hi Rachael. You are already disgusted with Shakespeare's portrayal of women in Othello eh! Fine but if you approach the play from that position, it may be unfortunate. It is as if your word "Help" above is added just as conventional courtesy, an after thought to a command not to a request. Show some humility and modesty if you seriously need help.
I like the play. I'd love to draw your attention to the structure, significance of triangles (three) for example. 3 women, 3 people dead at end of play, three admirers of desd, 3 locales, desa, movement of kerchief etc. I wish I could discuss all these and many more but perhaps this I accessed elsewhere, is all what you seek:


Putting the Demon in Desdemona
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The plot of Shakespeare's Othello revolves around the intricate stratagems concocted by the villain Iago to destroy Othello the Moor. Yet despite the central connection of women to Iago's schemes, they are neither the targets nor the impetus for his revenge. Instead, they are relegated to tertiary roles. Nevertheless, the women still suffer the most from Iago's intrigues. Beyond Desdemona's obvious objectification, the women in the play are defined in sexual terms - to whom they have yielded sexual access. Consequently, because women's roles are socially constructed as either the good woman and wife or the evil seductress, the male figures in their lives often suspect women of duplicity. They are not seen as multifaceted human beings. If women prove not to be the Madonna archetype, loyal wives and mothers, they most assuredly are whores capable of deceit and manipulation. Since Eve, the transformation of women from docile and innocent creatures to diabolical plotters either in actuality or in the male mind has been blamed for the downfall of powerful men.

The play begins as Othello usurps ownership of the fair and delicate Desdemona from her father, but when Iago warns Brabantio of her marriage, he does not appeal to filial compassion but to material possessiveness. He cries, "Thieves! Thieves! Thieves! / Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags," clearly equating Desdemona with Brabantio's property (Oth. I.iii.76-9). Her father refuses to accept her elopement with the powerful and accomplished Othello as a result of her own choice, attributing her actions to "spells and medicines bought of mountebanks" that Othello must have used (I. iii. 61), ignoring her role in the romance and courtship. He labels her as "abused and corrupted, stolen from me"; Desdemona has become damaged goods after choosing an unacceptable male, no longer Brabantio's "jewel" (I iii. 60, 193). After this corruption, her purity is shattered, and she is seen as quite capable of duplicity.

Now that Desdemona has been liberated from her father, however, she becomes more than just a material possession - she has evolved into a sexual one. Othello explicitly states this transformation as he anticipates consummating their marriage. "The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue; / That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you" (II iii 9-10). He has purchased her - stolen her from her father - and now is taking advantage of the sexual access that accompanies his acquisition. Furthermore, as he commands her to bed, he infantilizes her by commanding her to forget the affairs of war - the domain of men - she is not in his bed to think (II. Iii. 240).

Iago first used Othello's sexual access of Desdemona to rouse the ire of her father; since Desdemona was supposed to be Brabantio's cloistered little girl, Iago's assertion that "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe" challenges Brabantio's definition of her sexual access and elicits Brabantio's wrath (I. i. 85-86). After Othello scoops her up, she now is defined by her relationship to him rather than to her father. Yet Desdemona remains as impuissant as she was in her father's possession. Desiring to help advance Cassio's suit to regain his lost position, she must resort to the only power she possesses, trying to barter sexual access for Othello's mercy until "His bed shall seem a school" (III. iii. 24).

Their bed becomes far more than just a school. Even in death, Desdemona finds identity and meaning through her vicarious affiliation with Othello. After he has stopped her breath, she still lies to protect him, placing his interests before her own by claiming responsibility (IV. ii. 122). Previously, she had asked Emilia to place the wedding sheets that were used on the night that Othello completed the purchase of her sexuality, anticipating that those sheets would serve a double purpose as her burial shroud. Even in death, she remains trapped in the symbol of her own surrendered sexuality.

Desdemona is not the only character defined by a male's sexual access to her - both Emilia, Iago's wife, and Bianca, Cassio's courtesan, are assigned their positions based upon this criterion. Emilia is more savvy than Desdemona, realizing the power that sex has even outside of a marriage. In response to Desdemona's question about whether she would ever be unfaithful, Emilia replies with the question "who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch" (IV iii 77-8)? Beyond this, however, Emilia recognizes her own powerlessness and objectification - women are subordinated to powerful males and used emotionally and sexually until they are no longer of use:

They are all but stomachs and we all but food;
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us. (III iv 104-6)
Ever practical, Emilia seems to propose a quid pro quo relationship to maintain a husband's exclusive sexual access in juxtaposition to Desdemona's unswerving loyalty. Emilia contends, "Then let them use us well; else let them know, / The ills we do, their ills instruct us so," thus implying that a woman's fidelity must be purchased with kindness and understanding (III iv 105-106) or suffer retaliation in kind.

Answer 2

Women In Othello