HL Past Exam Questions
Othello
Emilia is in a similarly weakened position. However, she too invites the audience’s sympathy. This is partly due to the fact that she redeems herself morally at the end of the play but also because she is murdered at the hands of her husband in a patriarchal world. Where Desdemona is romantic and naïve, Emilia is realistic and worldly. As Othello begins to act strangely towards his wife, it is Emilia who recognises the hallmarks of jealousy. Desdemona argues that Othello has no reason to be jealous but Emilia draws on her experience of the world, pointing out that jealousy is often irrational and thrives on empty suspicion, that it is ‘a monster / Begot upon itself, born of itself’. Despite Emilia’s astute nature, her position as a woman in a patriarchal world means that she
has no choice but to act dutifully towards her husband. She stoically absorbs Iago’s putdowns when he calls her a ‘foolish wife’ and a ‘wench’; Emilia does not complain. Her loyalty to her husband is most evidenced when she steals Desdemona’s handkerchief for Iago without really questioning his motives: ‘What he will do with it, heaven knows, not I: / I nothing but to please his fantasy’. Although she does not know what Iago is planning, she dutifully turns a blind eye to her husband’s scheming. Like the other women in the play (Desdemona and Bianca) she loves a man who does not deserve that love. This vulnerability can only serve to elicit sympathy from the audience. Emilia’s greatest failing is her unwillingness to reveal to Desdemona the truth about the
handkerchief. This can be somewhat excused as stemming from a sense of wifely obligation. Despite this failing, Emilia does redeem herself at the end of the play. She staunchly defends Desdemona’s honour as Othello interrogates her: ‘I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest, / Lay down my soul at stake’. Her comment pre-empts the cost of her eventual honesty: her life. In the final scene Emilia bravely stands up to Othello by insisting on Desdemona’s innocence and raising the alarm upon her death: ‘I’ll make thee known / Though I lost twenty lives. Help! Help Ho! Help! / The Moor hath killed my mistress! Murder! Murder!’ Emilia struggles with the idea of defying her husband (‘’Tis proper I obey him – but / not now’) but her commitment to Desdemona overcomes this. She exposes Iago as a villain: ‘I will not charm my tongue. I am bound to speak.’ Her dying indictment of Othello reveals Emilia as a voice of moral reason in the final scene: ‘Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor’. Emilia ends the play redeemed in the eyes of the audience and forgiven for her unwitting part in Iago’s scheme.
Emilia is a fascinating character: worldly and astute, she is nonetheless dominated by her husband to whom she feels a sense of obligation. Her weaknesses arise from her disempowerment as a woman in a patriarchal world. This is clearly on show when she is murdered by her husband, who literally stabs her in the back.
Like Desdemona she is a victim of femicide in a patriarchal world. Both characters have personal
flaws, both are made vulnerable by male dominance. Despite these weaknesses, the audience’s sympathies are clearly with these victims. To suggest otherwise is to smother their potential as characters and to add to the mistreatment they experience in the male-dominated world of ‘Othello’.
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