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The island of Cyprus demonstrates its misogynist behavior in the very first scene where lago says to Desdemona and his wife Emilia “You rise to play, and go to bed to work.”(Act 2, Sc 1, 114) which shows that lago believes women as prostitutes or objects and also describes the ‘sexual promiscuity' problem occurring through out the play and adding angst to it. The play consisted of three females Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca, of which two were killed by the end of the play because of the dishonesty (Emilia) or for implied infidelity (Desdemona) by their husbands, which shows the discrimination between men and women in case of sexual promiscuity and dominance of men to kill their wives as a fit punishment for dishonesty (Brett).

Role of the women in the play

Othello's tragedy stems from ‘men's misunderstandings of women and women's inability to protect themselves from society's conception of them', according to Gayle Greene (Lewis). From this depiction we can portray the characters of the three ladies in the play as follows:

Desdemona: She https://www.51lunwen.org/euroliterature/ certainly had all the feminized qualities like passivity, calmness and obedience and belongs to the higher social level in the play. Her characteristics have no match with the Othello's masculine qualities of authority, laterality and aggression. She was in pressure of conventional pattern of behavior as wives and daughters which a women should follow in the society and thus retreats herself as a child even when Othello shown harsh behavior on her (Lewis).

Emilia: Emilia was wife of Lago and helped his husband unknowingly throughout the play in the despair of Desdemona, and thus she displays the female characteristics of trust on people (123Helpme.com). She respected Desdemona and tried defending her before Othello by saying “I durst, my lord, to wager 英语论文网 she is honest” (Shelly). However she has to forgo death by her husband and at that time also she sings a willow song, which shows the dominance of men on women (Brett).

Bianca: She is the mistress to Cassio. She demonstrated the character of a jealous partner in the relationship which is proved by her attitude towards the handkerchief produced by Cassio to her. Lago refers her as a prostitute, and had no respect for her. She is the only female survivor in the play; however her presence became a key to Desdemona death (123Helpme.com).

Thus, these women characters show that women were rational in their thoughts and trusting people but got misplaced by men like lago. Also they have intellectual ability but they are suppressed by the men dominating society.

Role of men in the Play

Men in the play who have acquired feminine characteristics also became the victims. A fair example of this is Roderigo who loved Desdemona and lacks masculine attributes and is over refined. He became the puppet in the hand of lago to serve his purpose as the following lines by lago in the play depict:”I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense. quat meaning boil or spot. And also as a source of income .Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him, As gifts to Desdemona” (Act 5, Sc 1, 11-17) (Brett).

Also Othello was a warrior in the starting but became effeminate after marrying Desdemona本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。