Othello (Vol. 68) - Ruth Vanita (essay date 1994)
Ruth Vanita (essay date 1994)
SOURCE: Vanita, Ruth. “‘Proper’ Men and ‘Fallen’ Women: The Unprotectedness of Wives in Othello.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 34, no. 2 (spring 1994): 341-56.
[In the following essay, Vanita identifies the similarities between the deaths of Desdemona and Emilia and explores the complicity of male society in the two murders.]
A surprisingly large number of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays represent or culminate in the murder of a wife, the reason cited almost always being her infidelity.1 The plays construct these murders, often led up to by beating and torture of the wife, as tragedy, yet endorse them as a form of justice.
These tragedies have come to be known as “domestic tragedies,” suggesting that the events are private, springing from a familial relationship, unlike tragedies which involve political murders and take place in the public sphere. An...
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