Negative Effects Of Womanhood In Othello

In the text Othello, Shakespeare shows to the audience the several negative effects that a patriarch-racial social structure has on human being’s minds and on the course of their lives. Through characters such as Othello, Desdemona and Emilia, Shakespeare explores how impregnated social signification and value of womanhood and manhood are based on behaving a certain way and how the exclusion of the different can shape the course of one’s life. Moreover, he explores the marginalization and destruction that those who don’t belong to the system and/or don’t conform with it suffer. The character Desdemona is one of the best examples of the price that those who don’t conform with the masculine and racial structure and exclusion of the “different”
Othello gives Desdemona a chance to speak for herself and to verify not only his lack of guilt but also her independence when he says “Send for the lady to the Saggitary And let her speak of me before her father. If you do find me foul in her report, [The trust, the office I do hold of you,] Not only take away, but let her sentence Even fall upon my life.” (1.3.135-140) Here, Othello not only values Desdemona own capacity of choosing her husband but also values Desdemona’s voice power and report. And Desdemona
She chooses for herself and insists on making her voice heard. Moreover, she not only defends herself but also defends Othello, when she affirms that he has qualities and is of honor. With these lines, she also tries to bring Othello out of the periphery that they had unfairly push him to, in his case not because of his gender but because of his race. She implies that he is of value and therefore those values should be the base of any judgement made of