Analzying Woman S Role in Society

¶ … room in the castle.

Enter OTHELLO, LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, EMILIA and Attendants

LODOVICO

I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.

OTHELLO

O, pardon me: 'twill do me good to walk.

LODOVICO

Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.

DESDEMONA

Your honour is most welcome.

OTHELLO

Will you walk, sir?

O, -- Desdemona,

DESDEMONA

My lord?

OTHELLO

Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done.

DESDEMONA

I will, my lord.

Exeunt OTHELLO, LODOVICO, and Attendants

EMILIA

How goes it now? he looks gentler than he did.

DESDEMONA

He says he will return incontinent:

He hath commanded me to go to bed,

And bade me to dismiss you.

EMILIA

Dismiss me!

DESDEMONA

It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.

Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:

We must not now displease him.

EMILIA

I would you had never seen him!

DESDEMONA

So would not I my love doth so approve him,

That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns

Prithee, unpin me, -- have grace and favour in them.

EMILIA

I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.

DESDEMONA

All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!

If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me

In one of those same sheets.

EMILIA

Come, come you talk.

DESDEMONA

My mother had a maid call'd Barbara:

She was in love, and he/she loved proved mad

And did forsake her: she had a song of 'willow;'

An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,

And she died singing it: that song to-night

Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,

But to go hang my head all at one side,

And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, dispatch.

EMILIA

Shall I go fetch your night-gown?

DESDEMONA

No, unpin me here.

This Lodovico is a proper man.

EMILIA

A very handsome man.

DESDEMONA

He speaks well.

EMILIA

I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.

DESDEMONA

[Singing] The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,

Sing all a green willow:

Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,

Sing willow, willow, willow:

The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans;

Sing willow, willow, willow;

Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones;

Lay by these:

Singing

Sing willow, willow, willow;

Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon:

Singing

Sing all a green willow must be my garland.

Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-

Nay, that's not next. -- Hark! whois't that knocks?

EMILIA

It's the wind.

DESDEMONA

[Singing] I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?

Sing willow, willow, willow:

If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men!

So, get thee gone; good night Ate eyes do itch;

Doth that bode weeping?

EMILIA

'Tis neither here nor there.

DESDEMONA

I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!

Dost thou in conscience think, -- tell me, Emilia,

That there be women do abuse their husbands

In such gross kind?

EMILIA

There be some such, no question.

DESDEMONA

Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

EMILIA

Why, would not you?

DESDEMONA

No, by this heavenly light!

EMILIA

Nor I neither by this heavenly light;

I might do't as well i' the dark.

DESDEMONA

Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

EMILIA

The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.

For a small vice.

DESDEMONA

In troth, I think thou wouldst not.

EMILIA

In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I had done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition; but for the whole world, -- why, who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.

DESDEMONA

Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong

For the whole world.

EMILIA

Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world: and having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right.

DESDEMONA

I do not think there is any such woman.

EMILIA

Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would store the world they played for.

But I do think it is their husbands' faults

If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,

And pour our treasures into foreign laps,

Or else break out in peevish jealousies,

Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,

Or scant our former having in despite;

Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,

Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know

Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell

And have their palates both for sweet and sour,

As husbands have. What is it that they do

When they change us for others? Is it sport?

I think it is: and doth affection breed it?

I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?

It is so too: and have not we affections,

Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?

Then let them use us well: else let them know,

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

DESDEMONA

Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,

Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!

Exeunt

Source:http://shakespeare.mit.edu/othello/full.html

Summary:

After dinner, Othello proposes to walk with Lodovico, and sends Desdemona to bed, telling her that he will be with her shortly and that she should dismiss Emilia. Desdemona seems aware of her imminent fate as she prepares for bed. She says that if she dies before Emilia, Emilia should use one of the wedding sheets for her shroud. As Emilia helps her mistress to undress, Desdemona sings a song, called "Willow," about a woman whose love forsook her. She says she learned the song from her mother's maid, Barbary, who died singing the song after she had been deserted by her lover. The song makes Desdemona think about adultery, and she asks Emilia whether she would cheat on her husband "for all the world" (IV.iii.62). Emilia says that she would not deceive her husband for jewels or rich clothes, but that the whole world is a huge prize and would outweigh the offense. This leads Emilia to speak about the fact that women have appetites for sex and infidelity just as men do, and that men who deceive their wives have only themselves to blame if their wives cheat on them. Desdemona replies that she prefers to answer bad deeds with good deeds rather than with more bad deeds. She readies herself for bed.

Source:http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/othello/section8.rhtml

Analysis

Emilia clearly recognizes that something is very wrong, but Desdemona's mind is consumed with the issue of her husband's love. She is so much in love with him that she is incapable of telling if his love is lost or is yet to be recovered. Desdemona has responded to this disaster with the submissiveness to grief, as was the tradition of the deserted women. On the other hand, Othello, having thoughts that he no longer has the love and fidelity of Desdemona, responds with hostile passions of claims and hostility.

Desdemona narrates the tale of Barbary, maid to her mother, and her sad destiny. "She was in love, and he/she lov'dprov'd mad, / And did forsake her: she had a song of 'willow,' / An old thing @'twas, but it express'd her fortune, / And she died singing it" (27-30). Barbary and Desdemona are quite alike in various ways; the maid of her mother is something like her mother's daughter, a girl under the safety and care of her mother. This is actually only instant when Desdemona talks of her mother, and she does this in a far-away pat, as if she were no more. Her mother does not contribute in the story of the courtship and eventual marriage to Othello. Desdemona acts and speaks like an independent woman, who assumes full responsibility of her choices.

Not only are Barbary and Desdemona not alone in their grief, but are both connected with strangers. The name "Barbary" stands for "foreigner." Desdemona got married to a stranger that was referred to some as a barbarian, which is an uncivilized stranger. The marriage is expressed by Iago as that between "an erring barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian"(I.3, 355-356).

The "Willow Song" is sang by Desdemona, and in this indirect manner, she encounters the actual likelihood that Othello is going insane and shall abandon her, leaving her to die with heart break. The "Willow Song" is an old song, present in numerous versions before its inclusion in the play by Shakespeare. In the song, it is the male lover that is wrong and the reason behind the crying of the poor woman. The mood absolutely reflects Desdemona's mood, whose affection is so intense that she supports the scowls of Othello, just like the "poor soul" (41). Willow, also called weeping willow, is mostly related to lost love in the plays of Shakespeare. In Hamlet, Ophelia drowns surrounded by flowers and willows; in accordance to Gertrude: "There is a willow grows askant a brook" (Hamlet IV.7, 166). Prince Hamlet, the love of Ophelia, seemed mad and rejected her, and Ophelia lost her senses and died singing while she drowned. Barbary and Ophelia have nearly the same story.

Throughout this particular scene, while Desdemona is comforted by Emilia, Emilia is aware that Iago, her husband, has the handkerchief, something that she could have told Desdemona, but she chose not to. Emilia hopes that nothing more shall be heard of the issue. She had silently stood in the background when Othello asked to see the handkerchief and Desdemona could not present it (Act III, Scene 4). For Emilia, speaking now would be too late, but hiding the information is not sincere either.

Desdemona and Emilia make a vivid comparison in their approach to marriage and trustworthiness. Desdemona married for love and totally values fidelity. Emilia evaluates all situations to determine the best line of action. She perceives that a wife's unfaithfulness is a serious issue, just to be carried out for good concrete reasons: "who would not make her husband a cuckold, to make him a monarch?" (74-75). Another reason for a wife's infidelity is in response to the maltreatment or misbehavior of the husband: "But I do think it is their husbands' faults / If wives do fall" (86-87).

At the conclusion of Act IV, Emilia's speech on the mistakes of husbands neatly equalizes Iago's speech in Act IV on the mistakes of wives. Desdemona heard both the speeches and rejected them as not being relatable to her and her love.

Source:http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/othello/summary-and-analysis/act-iv-scene-3

PORTIA

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

NERISSA

You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

PORTIA

Good sentences and well pronounced.

NERISSA

They would be better, if well followed.

PORTIA

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may

devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I

dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,

Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?

NERISSA

Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations: therefore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?

PORTIA

I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.

NERISSA

First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

PORTIA

Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith.

NERISSA

Then there is the County Palatine.

PORTIA

He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'If you will not have me, choose:' he hears merry tales and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

NERISSA

How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

PORTIA

God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.

In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I

should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me

I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I

shall never requite him.

NERISSA

What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?

PORTIA

You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French,

nor Italian, and you will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English.

He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited!

I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his behavior everywhere.

NERISSA

What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbor?

PORTIA

That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman and swore he would pay him again when he was able: I

think the Frenchman became his surety and sealed under for another.

NERISSA

How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?

PORTIA

Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast:

and the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

NERISSA

If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him.

PORTIA

Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge.

NERISSA

You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords: they have acquainted me with their determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition depending on the caskets.

PORTIA

If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them a fair departure.

NERISSA

Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

PORTIA

Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, he was so called.

NERISSA

True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

PORTIA

I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

Enter a Serving-man

How now! what news?

Servant

The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the prince his master will be here to-night.

PORTIA

If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good a heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach: if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come,

Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.

Whiles we shut the gates upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.

Exeunt

Source:http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/full.html

Summary

At Belmont, Portia discusses the terms of her father's will with her confidante, Nerissa. According to the will of her late father, Portia cannot marry a man of her own choosing. Instead, she must make herself available to all suitors and accept the one who chooses "rightly" from among "three chests of gold, silver and lead." Nerissa tries to comfort Portia and tells her that surely her father knew what he was doing; whoever the man might be who finally chooses "rightly," surely he will be "one who shall rightly love." Portia is not so certain. None of her current suitors is the kind of man whom she would choose for herself if she could choose. She cannot, however, for she gave her word that she would be obedient to her father's last wishes.

Nerissa asks her to reconsider the gentlemen who have courted her, and she names the suitors who have come to Belmont -- a Neapolitan prince; the County Palatine; a French lord, Monsieur Le Bon; a young English baron, Falconbridge; a Scottish lord; and a young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew. Portia caustically comments on their individual faults, finding each one of them undesirable as a husband. Fortunately, all of them have decided to return home, unwilling to risk the penalty for choosing the wrong casket -- which is, remaining a bachelor for the rest of their lives.