Women Flashcards
Desdemona showing her intelligent side to play into the male gaze
“Most gracious Duke, to my unfolding lend your prosperous ear… t’assist my simpleness.”
Desdemona showing her naive side
“His bed shall seem a school”
“Why then, tomorrow night, or tuesday morn; on tuesday, noon or night; on wednesday morn!”
“I think the sun, where he was born, drew all such humours from him.”
“There be women who do abuse their husbands in such gross kind?” shocked
Emilia showing worldly knowledge
“They are not jealous for cause, but jealous for they’re jealous.”
“They are all but stomachs, and we are all but food.”
“Who would not make their husband a cuckold to make him a monarch?”
“The world’s a huge thing; It is a great price, for a small vice.”
“My wayward husband hath a hundred times wooed me to steal it. I am nothing, but to please his fantasy.”
Desdemona showing love for Othello
“Nobody. I myself. Farewell. Commend me to my kind lord - O, Farewell!”
“I saw Othello’s visage in my mind, and to his honours and his valiant parts did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.”
Emilia at the end of her protofeminist arc
“Let heavens and men and devils all, all cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.”
“They are not ever jealous for cause, but jealous for they’re jealous” (links to cognitive + emotional jealousy (AO5)
What does Claire Johnstone say about Desdemona playing into male fantasy?
“Desdemona may gesture towards the patriarchal understanding of father to husband, but only to cleverly defend her own transgressive behaviour.”
“By suggesting female power is exercised in domestic space, Desdemona once again taps into patriarchal discourse.”
What does Claire Johnstone say about shakespeare’s tragic heroines?
“Shakespeare’s tragic heroines are often looked upon typically as objects of the ‘male gaze’.”
What does Simone de Beauvoir say about women?
“A woman is what a man says she is”
