Domination Over Women

In Ancient time, less acceptable role of women in art and literature in the society. However, the exact attention of women towards addressing their issues throughout the words of literature gradually began. Around the world, womenism and feminism could have the immense influence in literature in the first half of 20th century. Although, in 1929 when author Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own, stating, “Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems”, the portrayal of women in literature remains a topic much discussed today. In order to evaluate how and why women are portrayed the way they are today, one must look at historical evidence of the roles of women in both society and literature, and how they have changed and modified over time. In Ancient Greece, women had a limited role in society, society could not had allowed them to walk freely, talk freely, work freely and this devaluation of women is reflected in the literature of the time.

                                     By 16th century, one can begin to see the early foundations of feminist ideas, such as a right to education and an ability to have some legal rights, leading authors such as Shakespeare to have a wider portrayal of women in their literature. By 18th century, one can see a growth in published female authors and more women playing respected roles in the literature, although not hitting today’s feminist theory standards desiring total equality. However, the role of women in society has continually changed and improved, which is shown by the literature; by 20th century, one can see feminist revisions, rewriting literature informed by feminist literary criticism, even of books that were considered groundbreaking when they were written. Beginning with Greek mythology, going into Shakespearian plays, continuing into classic novels then finally looking at modern feminist revisions, one can see how, as women are able to have a more valued and wider range of roles in society, there are similar, positive trends in the portrayal of women in literature, showing the importance of literature in understanding other time periods.
Most, if not all, of the records left from Ancient Greece are from men, few of them favorable to women. Men such as Aristotle, Demosthenes, Hyperides and Pericles all made statements about women, saying that men were superior, women were meant to stay in the house and that they were regularly a source of “curse to man.”, providing negative temptation. The beliefs about women in Ancient Greece is best shown by Pericles quote, stating, “A woman’s reputation is highest when men say little about her, whether it be good or evil.”This depreciation of women was evident in many of the records, with some of the best examples being the literature.
One of the most famous aspects of Ancient Greek culture was their mythology, which is why one must first look at the women in Greek mythology to get an accurate sense of the portrayal of women in Ancient Greek society and literature in particular. Gaia, Goddess of the Earth, was one of the first beings according to their mythology and it could even be said that she created the whole world herself. Despite that, there are very few if any stories about her directly; the vast majority of stories involving her just include her as the mother of whoever the myth is really about. (Osborn.) In addition, another important women in Greek mythology was Hera, Goddess of Marriage and Queen of Olympus. Hera was held in high esteem, indicating the importance that marriage and family had in the society. However, when one looks at Hera, they see that most stories are about her jealousy and vindictive nature. First, one can look at her relationship with Zeus who tricked and raped Hera, forcing her to marry him while continually cheating on her with other women. Despite this infidelity from Zeus, Hera is generally viewed as the bad one. Furthermore, when Zeus did cheat on Hera, she regularly punished either the women or the children, which shows that women were considered to be purposefully seductive and therefore responsible for the act and also that women, even the Queen of Olympus, were ruled by their emotions and not logical. (Ching) By looking at the portrayal of women in Greek mythology, one can learn much about Ancient Greek society.

Another seminal work from this time, The Odyssey, also reflects the narrow view of women during this time period. At the time, the only role women had was the role of being a mother and wife, which is reflected in the epic poem. When Penelope is grieving over the loss of her husband, her son Telemachus admonishes, “So, mother, go back to your quarters. Tend to your own tasks, the distaff and the loom, and keep the women working hard as well. As for giving orders, men will see to that, but I most of all: I hold the reins of power in this house". His rebuke shows how women were consistently devalued and the men, even their own children, had power over them. At the time, women were largely seen as evil, meant to stop men from achieving power, shown by the Sirens who attempt to stop him, saying, “Come this way, honored Odysseus, great glory of the Archaians, and you’re your shop, so that you can listen here to our singing; for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black shop until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues from our lips” Although, his shipmates help him avoid this temptation, he is not so lucky with Circe and he spends seven whole years wasting time with her. Based off the roles of women in The Odyssey, one can learn more about the patriarchal society in which it was written.

                                    Another important literary time period for the better expression of diverse women...one that should be included when discussing the history of literature, is the work of Shakespeare and others during the 16th century. In 16th century Europe, women still had very limited rights. Girls were not educated at schools while women had very few rights with the expectation that they would marry, raise kids and be submissive to their husband. Although there was slight movements towards women with jobs outside of the home and how society felt about women. With women, there were many restrictions inside and outside the family as well as society. However, there was very little change, viewing a women as “a fragile delicate flower incapable of making decisions beyond selecting the menu and ensuring her many children were taught moral values”. However, in literature such as Shakespeare’s works, there are compelling portrayals of women with varied and important roles although they still do not hold up to today’s feminist ideals. Although they are obviously not perfect by any means, Shakespeare’s 16th century work does show some of the very beginnings of positive trends in terms of the portrayal of women in literature. 
One of Shakespeare’s most fascinating works, particularly when looking at the women in the play, is Macbeth. One of Shakespeare’s most interesting women to examine is Lady Macbeth, as she both challenges and conforms to gender expectations. At the time, most women were expected to be submissive to their husband and a good mother to their children, an expectation she challenges. She is not submissive to Macbeth; in fact, she is the exact opposite, seen when she states, “When you durst do it, you were a man”. In doing this, she is convincing him to kill somebody, showing her power. In addition, Shakespeare makes another powerful statement about gender, suggesting that men were expected to want power. In addition, she subverts the expectation of being motherly, stating, “I would, while it was smiling in my face/ have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums/ and dash’d the brains out”, However, Shakespeare’s Macbeth does include some retrogressive elements as well. First, at this time, most powerful women were presented as evil, a stereotype Lady Macbeth fits. One can also see that the women internalizing the beliefs of a patriarchal society, with Lady Macbeth saying, “Come, you spirits/ that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here”, showing that even she views the traits that might stop her from being able to kill Duncan as womanly.

Furthermore, the beliefs of the society are shown by the way the characters handle the situation, with Macbeth becoming power-hungry and Lady Macbeth eventually committing suicide. Due to the combination of having important, dominant women with power but also still fitting many unfortunate, historical stereotypes, Macbeth is an intriguing novel to look at from a feminist standpoint.
In addition, another Shakespeare play with interesting portrayals of women in Twelfth Night, as it helps to show the important yet undervalued role of women in 16th century society. First of all, the situation provides a look at gender roles as the audience would see a man pretending to play a woman who is pretending to play a man, indicating that gender is not as fluid as most people during this time believed. Viola, in order to find work, must dress and act as man to survive. However, although she is forced to play as a man in order to survive, Shakespeare does make her into one of the most important characters in the play, a positive force who is not stopped by her gender. In addition, Shakespeare also challenges some gender roles, with Olivia pursuing who she thinks is Cesario. After first meeting Cesario, Olivia states, “I love thee so, that, maugre all my pride/nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.”  This is unusual because not only is Olivia playing the traditional role of the man, she is also courting somebody below her level in society. Although these are some examples of more progressive actions, there are also some more traditional beliefs about gender expressed in the play. For example, when Orsino is talking to Viola who is pretending to be Cesario, he states,
“Then let thy love be younger than thyself/ or thy affection cannot hold the bent/ For women are as roses, whose fair flower,/ being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.” (II.vi. 41-45) Orsino, in this statement, indicates that women are useless after a specific age. Although Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night does conform to some roles, it also provides an interesting challenge to traditional societal norms about gender. Shakespeare’s works like his long narrative poem, Venus and Adonis(1593), The Lover's Complaint(1609), Rape of Lucrece(1594),Passionate Pilgrim(1598), in all these poems ,Shakespeare expossed female suppressed issues, and the touch of feminism. He wrote 154 sonnets, in these works also could have the same touch of feminism but here, going to clarify through Sonnet (144).

“Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.”

In Sonnet 144, it is written can have multiple purposes. The first, derived by a cursory reading of the text, that of describing the inner emotional turmoil of the narrator at being torn between his two loves- one a man with a fair complexion and the other a woman with a dark complexion – and corrupting the male lover and the narrator with her sex. At a deeper reading, however, the sonnet explores the relationship between homoeroticism in that era and contrasts, it against the heterosexual norm that was said to not only be natural but the holy and very pious path.
Shakespeare starts the sonnet having his narrator describe a conflict within them at choosing between two loves: one a man, and the other a woman. The man is described as “the better angel”whereas “the worser spirit [is] a woman colored ill”. Throughout the history, both in art and without, females and the female body have been demonized as temptresses and objects of temptation. Temptation, in the context of religion, is a mortal sin as it is given over to the territory of lust. Women tempted men throughout history, not solely in what they did but in how they looked as well, and men did not like being tempted against Christ or being made to feel weak and desperate. As a result, the female form has been demonized throughout art history, frequently something describing a base sexual undertone with a plethora of naked women; in the nature of later paintings, even going so far as to demonize sexuality and women quite literally, by putting grossly overemphasized breasts on demons and other animals, such as monkeys. Shakespeare does the very same, not in characterizing the Shakespeare does the very same, not in characterizing the woman as any sort of devilish beast, but in simply describing her in terms of temptation and lust, and therefore sin. However, it is to be noted that he never blatantly calls her anything remotely offensive, and ends by calling her his “bad angel” which although does not have a good connotation together still suggests with “angel” that she is of a divine origin and should be given the respect as such, not as the specific woman he is describing, but as a woman in general.
In my knowledge, the second and more profound treatise within this sonnet,is a play on the traditional biblical roles, or at least their canonic interpretations of such, to describe an exploration into the nature of homoeroticism in the Elizabethan age. The sonnet begins “two loves I have of comfort and despair” which allocates comfort to one love, the male one respectively as he follows first, and despair to another, the female interest. It is widely believed that sonnets 18 to 126 are written to a beloved male, assumed through historical context to be Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southhampton, though it does not indicate to what degree the narrator and the Earl are lovers. The narrator continues to shower the male love interest with favorable, and even holy, adjectives and roles. The narrator describes the man as “right fair” which is a very attractive trait, as opposed to the how the woman is “colored ill”. The narrator also describes him as an angel in lines three, six, nine, and twelve, mixing such a holy designation with the label of a “saint” and declaring that he has “purity”, all of these connotations directly contrast his holiness against the woman’s wickedness, using the opposition of the sexes as the fulcrum of the thesis. This foundation to the sonnet can be analyzed to believe that Shakespeare is saying that women as it is in the bible are impure, and thus the love between a man and a woman is innately impure; therefore, if men and women are opposite one another, then the love between a man and a man is a pure love. However, the irony of this conclusion is that the ‘pure love’ between a man and a man is condemned by the Old Testament, and the heterosexual love between a man and a woman, though inherently impure if women are temptresses and the female body is evil, is the only correct choice for a lover to make. Shakespeare pits the reader against the social norms of the time, wither forcing them to accept that homoeroticism is natural and pure, or as it is portrayed that all other relationships between men and women are impure, women are pure beings as well and do not deserve the current treatment that they have received simply because they are female. In sonnet 144, he challenges the biblical concept of love and believes that all love is pure, regardless of sex or gender or orientation and should be treated as such.
In Shakespeare’s poem "The Rape of Lucrece" Tarquin accomplishes this as he rapes Lucrece, dehumanizing and silencing her, ultimately showing the ways that men in Renaissance society could control female independence with dominant and animalistic behavior.
Interestingly as Sara Quay says in her article, “Feminist scholars have been especially interested in ‘The Rape of Lucrece’ because of the extent to which Shakespeare develops Lucrece and explores the impact the rape has on her”. Despite Tarquin’s success in dehumanizing and raping Lucrece, she spends almost half of the poem speaking independently. In an attempt to stop Tarquin, she uses rhetoric to persuade him not to ruin his own honor or set a sinful example for future generations, “wilt thou be the school where lust shall learn? / Must he in thee read lectures of such shame? / Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern / Authority for sin, warrant for blame”. Strategically, she attempts to prevent the loss of her own honor by showing concern for his instead.
However, as Katharine Eisaman Maus’ article mentions, the poem has an “insistent concern with the relationship between sex and power”. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare describes what happens when Lucrece tries to regain power and stop Tarquin from raping her: “Challenged, he tells her, drawing his sword, that if she refuses him he will kill her and a slave, making it appear he caught them in bed together, whereas if not she can keep his violation a secret”. He threatens her reputation, using violence and domination to silence her. He then takes Lucrece’s chastity and the quality of humanness which serves as her only real social power, allowing him to dehumanize her and assert his superiority as a man.Despite, Lucrece’s opinionated, educated, rhetorical voice throughout the poem, she still allows Tarquin to silence her in many ways. Rather than blaming Tarquin for her rape, Lucrece remains silent, and instead blames many other factors. She blames Night for her rape when she says, “ast sin-concealing chaos ,O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night,/Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime”. She blames the Night’s darkness for concealing the beast within man. She also blames Opportunity and Time, saying, “O opportunity, thy guilt is great: / ‘Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason; / Thou sets the wolf where he the lamb may get; / Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season”. She implies in these lines that men are not expected to control themselves if they have the opportunity to rape a woman, as Opportunity makes it simple for the man who “plots the sin.” Worst of all, Lucrece blames herself not for losing her own honor but for losing her husband’s; she says to Collatine, “Yet I am guilty of thy honour’s wrack”. To rid her husband of this shame, Lucrece finally decides to kill herself, allowing Tarquin’s actions to permanently silence her.Although Lucrece challenges Tarquin’s power through her rhetoric in the poem, she allows him to silence and dominate her through his animalistic, violent behavior and ultimately making this a poem reflective of male dominance and female silence the face of it.

'A Lover's Complaint' is a compressed poem detailing the predicament of an abandoned female lover who laments her undoing at the hands of an unscrupulous male seducer.It was first printed at the end of Shakespeare's Sonnets, published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609, where it is preceded by a separate heading and a further ascription to Shakespeare. The poem has long presented something of an enigma to scholars and has for centuries been overlooked and undervalued. Readers are often frustrated by the poem's complex syntax which occasionally verges on impenetrability; more significantly, the poem's reception history is characterized by uncertainty about its attribution to Shakespeare and doubts over whether its 1609 appearance was authorized.  E. Y. Elliott arguing on the basis of computer-assisted textual analysis that both A Lover's Complaint and A Funeral Elegy "fail too many Shakespeare tests to look much like Shakespeare." Other scholars have concluded to the contrary that the poem can confidently be attributed to Shakespeare and, further, that it was written at some point between 1602 and 1605. Ilona Bell has confirmed the insistent thematic links between A Lover's Complaint and the Sonnets, arguing that the longer poem functions as both a "commentary on and reader's guide to the drama enacted by and concealed within the Sonnets." Previously, John Kerrigan argued that the 1609 volume was conceived as a whole, despite its disjointed appearance to the modern reader, pointing out that female-voiced plaints frequently trailed early modern sonnet sequences such as Samuel Daniel's Delia (1592) and Thomas Lodge's Phillis (1593). This essay agrees with those who argue that Shakespeare is the most likely author but suggests that most recent readings of the poem have neglected to take into account the variety and conditions of early modern complaint. The genesis of early modern complaint can be traced through courtly lyrics and popular ballads of the early and late Middle Ages back to the laments of Virgil, Ovid, and Theocritus. In the sixteenth century these various strands merged in an outpouring of petitions and mock-petitions articulating social distress or political injustice, as well as complaints in the voices of aggrieved lovers (both women and men) which echoed medieval chansons d'aventure. Although much early modern plangent verse was published in broadside, the genre known as "female complaint" nevertheless still tends to invite interpretation in an aristocratic or courtly context because of its association since Ovid's Heroides and The Mirror for Magistrates with the fall of princes. This fort disturbs complaint's continuing association with court culture and argues that the mode of confession in which we recognize from amatory laments such as Shakespeare's evident in "popular" complaints, often from urban locations outside London. Imaginatively reconstructed confessions of female criminals flourished in ballad form at the turn of the century. Some dealt with murder, treason, and witchcraft; others with the breakdown in domestic order occasioned by crimes such as infanticide, adultery, or violence against husbands. Considered alongside these texts, A Lover's Complaint reveals how Shakespeare imagined the experimental genre of male-authored, female-voiced lament as inseparable from the unruliness of female confession. The readings that emerge have important implications for our understanding of gender and authorship at the beginning of the seventeenth century for as we will see to reconstruct the broader spectrum of complaint is to begin to hear the difference between women's voices and ventriloquized voices in early modern poetry and drama. Shakespeare's plays have long been acknowledged to include elements of marginal culture and contemporary social disorder, but his poems have largely resisted such analysis. I hope to contribute to the recent debate concerning the links between Shakespeare's Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint by showing how both works are interested in confessional testimony. Shakespeare describes confession functioning not only in a religious context as a means toward private spiritual absolution but also in a legal context as a public spectacle of contrition.

Feminism in Othello:-
                                     William Shakespeare's "Othello” can be read from a feminist perspective. A feminist analysis of the play Othello allows us to judge the different social values and status of women in the Elizabethan society. Othello serves as an example to demonstrate the expectations of the Elizabethan patriarchal society, the practice of privileges in patriarchal marriages, and the suppression and restriction of femininity. According to Elizabethan or Shakespeare's society built upon Renaissance beliefs, women were meant only to marry. As their single occupation, marriage held massive responsibilities of house management and child rearing. Additionally, women were expected to be silent, chaste, and obedient to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and all men in general. Patriarchal rule justified women's subordination as the natural order because women were thought to be physiologically and psychologically inferior to men.
                                                    As we go through Othello we find that the women characters are presented according to this expectation of the Elizabethan society.There are only three women in ‘Othello’: Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. The way that these women behave and conduct themselves is undeniably linked to the ideological expectations of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan society and to the patriarchal Venetian society that he creates. These notes will explore some of the ways in which the female characters are presented in the play.

Women as possessions:-
Following his hearing of Brabantio’s complaint and Othello’s defence, the Duke eventually grants permission for Desdemona to accompany Othello to Cyprus. Othello speaks to his ensign Iago, ironically describing him as a man of ‘honesty and trust’, informing the Duke that ‘To his conveyance I assign my wife’. Desdemona, as Othello’s wife, is treated as his possession: he implies that she is a commodity to be guarded and transported.This is, however, by no means peculiar to Othello: the first Senator, wishing Othello well, concludes by hoping that he will ‘use Desdemona well’. The word ‘use’ seems to connote the phrase ‘look after’, but also supports the Venetian expectation of women that they are to bow to the wills of theirhusbands who may utilise them as they wish. Moreover, the function of women within marriage is also delineated by Othello’s ‘loving’ words to Desdemona in Act II: ‘Come, my dear love,/The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue’. Marriage is described as an act of ‘purchase’: a woman is bought by her husband, effectively as a favour, and is expected to fulfil his sexual desires in return for the privilege. Iago’s desire for revenge on Othello is, in part, dictated by his view of women as possessions. He believes that ‘it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets/He’s done my office, suggesting that Othello has slept with his wife Emilia. It could be argued, however, that Iago exhibits little love for his wife, insulting her in public and ultimately killing her himself. It is simply the thought that ‘the lusty Moor/hath leaped into my seat’ which drives him mad, the thought that Othello has used a possession that belongs to him. Compounding this theory is the fact that Iago refers to his wife metaphorically in these two instances: she is his ‘office’ and his ‘seat’; she is objectified and deprived of her humanity.
Moreover, in revenge for Othello’s supposed act, Iago wishes to be ’evened with him, wife for wife’. By sleeping with Desdemona, he believes that they will then be equal. The feelings of Desdemona and Emilia are completely disregarded in his plotting. The women are merely objects to be used in order to further his own desires. Although Iago is an extreme example, he nonetheless demonstrates, through his thinking, the fact that women, in both Elizabethan and Venetian society, are perceived as possessions, secondary to the lofty plans and desires of men.

Women as submissive:- Some modern feminist critics see Desdemona as a hideous embodiment of the downtrodden woman. Whether this is actually the case will be explored later in these notes. Suffice it to say, there is a large body of evidence to support this critical stance. Desdemona herself declares that ‘I am obedient’ continuing to obey Othello’s orders from the early ‘happy’ phase of their relationship through to the later stages of his jealous ravings. Even when he orders Desdemona to go to her bed towards the end of Act IV, she still replies with the submissive ‘I will, my lord’. In her final breath she still remains true to her husband, saying ‘Commend me to my kind lord’ and providing Othello with an alibi that he does not use. She appears to have completely accepted her role as subordinate and obedientwife. A much stronger character, Emilia also indicates that she is aware of her ‘proper’ role in society. When revealing Iago’s plotting at the end of the play, she states that ‘Tis proper I obey him, but not now’. Although going on to betray her husband, she still feels the need to explain why she is deviating from accepted behaviours. Bianca expresses a similar sentiment,consoling herself when Cassio spurns her by arguing that ‘I must be circumstanced’. She feels compelled by the laws of society to be ‘circumstanced’ - to ‘put up with it’ implying that she has no other choice.Society weighs heavily on the shoulders of these women; they feel that they must support the men and defer to them, even if the actions of the men are questionable.Brabantio’s opinions of women appear to represent Venetian ideology.Speaking of Desdemona before she erred, he describes her as ‘perfection’,‘Of spirit still and quiet’ and ‘A maiden never bold’.By expressing these qualities of women in the masculine domain of the Venetian senate,Brabantio compounds and develops the traditional expectations of women in a patriarchal society. Moreover, when she marries Othello, going against his wishes and therefore the ideal mould of woman, he describes her as erring ‘Against all rules of nature’. Venetian society presents its own social beliefs as immutable laws of nature. It is ‘natural’ for women to be feminine and to do as their husbands and fathers tell them. It is ‘unnatural’ for them to do anything else. This Venetian concept was also an Elizabethan and pre-Elizabethan belief, and was widely understood by Shakespeare’s audiences.
Actually, feminists argue that it is not ‘natural’ for women to be ‘feminine’, that history has tried to camouflage its social expectations of women as part of the laws of nature. The women of Othello, however, are pre-Feminism, and seem to only compound the ideological expectations of what it is to be a woman through their own behaviour.

Women as temptresses:-
                                        This is not to say that women in Othello do not exhibit any signs of wielding power. Othello, when talking of his wife, often seems pre-occupied with matters of the flesh. Bemoaning the fact that he did not know earlier of his wife’s supposed infidelity, Othello argues that he would have been happier ‘if the general camp,/Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body,/So I had
nothing known’. He appears to be obsessed with Desdemona’s sexuality. On his way to murder his wife, he states that ‘Thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood be spotted’. The repetition of the word ‘lust’, combined with the sexual associations of Desdemona’s bed and the violent plosives and sibilants of this line, reflects and draws attention to Othello’s preoccupation with sensual matters.
                             This preoccupation is partly driven by the fact that Desdemona wields so much sexual power over him. Even Cassio refers, jokingly, to Desdemona as ‘our great Captain’s Captain’, implying that she is the only individual capable of controlling and taming Othello. Desdemona uses this when attempting to persuade Othello to reinstate Cassio: she tells the latter that ‘My lord shall never rest’ until she has changed his mind, an indication of the tenacity of the woman. Attempting to change his mind, Desdemona is not frightened to use her position and sexuality:

‘Tell me, Othello. I wonder in my soul
What you would ask me that I should deny,
Or stand so mammering on?’ (III.3.68-70)

In this instance, she refers to her own unquestioning desire to please Othello, implying that he cannot love her as she loves him if he is able to refuse her what she wants. Othello responds with the interestingly oxymoronic term of endearment ‘Excellent wretch’, suggesting that he is aware that her manipulation of him is fairly ‘wretched’, yet finds it ‘excellently’ compelling.
                                      Later in the play, Othello ceases to find Desdemona’s sexual power so entertaining. Speaking to Iago about his planned murder of Desdemona, Othello is adamant that he will ‘not expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again’. As far is Othello is concerned, if he is tempted into conversation and interaction with his wife, then her overpowering sexuality will deter him from the right and inevitable course of action. Her considers her to be a sexual hazard, a strumpet intent on using her body to blind and deceive him. Male society, in addition to constructing women as second-rate citizens, also constructs their sexual allure as evil.                       
Desdemona has certainly perceived men to be god-like figures in the past, but indicates that her experiences with Othello have taught her a lesson. It is a clear that the actions and language of Shakespeare’s three female characters, although seemingly subservient, signify a tentative step towards an egalitarian society.

Feminism in Merchant of Venice:-

Shakespeare’s Portia is not a feminist; rather she is a ‘radical’ feminist understanding gender as the cause of her oppression.
Portia is in a unique locale with her position as a single incredibly wealthy female without a male reigning over her. Although, she has her fathers will prohibit her choice for marriage; Portia remains a character with fierce autonomy and an astonishing sense of self.
Portia is typically lauded as feminist in a male dominated society; the opposite view can also be taken. Portia’s most prominent moment as a successful, intelligent, rational female comes in the courtroom scene when she is dressed as a man. What would be a moment of success for feminine wit and wiles instead is transformed into the opposite. Portia must don a cloak of masculinity in order to speak in the courtroom that much is clear. The Venetian court system did not allow female lawyers, nor was there educational institutions in place that allowed this as well. However, Portia as a female takes it upon herself to ‘fix’ the problems the men cannot fix, taking no credit.
May be Portia could' in fact ' be labeled a ‘radical feminist’. Defined by Angela Caravella as someone who believes their oppression is solely based on their gender and its depiction as inferior, radical feminism seems to fight in with Portia’s character. She refers to herself as, “lord/of this fair mansion, master of my servants”, instead of lady and mistress, understanding the gendered differences. Portia comprehends she cannot be in charge of her house as the lady, because that assumes there remains a lord. Since her father’s death, Portia is in control and to be in control she must be the ‘lord’. However, she is only ‘radical’ in that she understands her gender to be the source of her oppression. Portia does not present as an individual looking to fight against social norms and further the female cause, rather she looks to fight against her own personal oppressions.
She successfully manipulates those around her to end the play with more independence than she began with. By absorbing Shylock’s wealth, Portia in fact is able to increase and remain sovereign over her inheritance. She begins the play a prisoner to her father’s will, and ends as independent as she can be. In terms of changing her destiny and fate, Portia could claim to be the ultimate merchant at the end of the play in Merchant of Venice.

                                                   Many feminist movements took place and many classic novels were written in the 18th and 19th century, making it a crucial time to examine. Modern feminism was nonexistent. However, some ideas of feminism were beginning to show up in society. Historically women had been valued based on their gentleness, purity and domesticity. However, during this time period, women began to feel that they deserved more rights; they should be able to go to school, to vote, to have jobs and to overall be more valued in society. (Jackson) This led to significant social changes which had impacts on virtually every aspect of life, including the newly progressive literature.
In 1847, Charlotte Bronte published Jane Eyre, a book that could be considered one of the first feminist novels, a revolutionary work for its time. From the beginning, Jane Eyre is not submissive or dumb; she is quite spirited, telling Ms. Reed that, “I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will ever call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if anyone asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.”As a young women, Jane ends up agreeing to marry a man named Rochester; however, after learning that he is keeping his other wife locked in their attic, she runs away. She meets another man, but then eventually goes back to Mr. Rochester and marries him. At the end of the novel, Jane states, “I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest- blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.” Some readers from a feminist viewpoint are upset; after all this time, her happiness is only when married and she goes back to the man who once kept his other wife in the attic. On the other hand, others are satisfied; Jane has followed her heart to who she loves and is happy with her choices. Charlotte Bronte,Jane Eyre is a fascinating book from a feminist standpoint, where the reader can see the past that led to the creation of the book, the role of women when the book was written and how the role of women has continually been changing and improving.
                                        Although, women were beginning to have broader, more positive roles in both society and literature, there were still some problematic opinions from the historical devaluation of women; in A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf discusses this and how it continually affects women. In this work, which was originally a series of lectures, Woolf invents an imaginary sister for Shakespeare, then goes on to discuss why she would be unable to be as successful as William Shakespeare despite having just as much talent. She discusses what exactly fiction about women entails, explaining, “The title women and fiction might mean, and you may have meant it to mean, women and what they are like, or it might mean women and the fiction that is written about them, or it might mean somehow all three are inextricably mixed together and you want me to consider them in that light.” Woolf concludes that they are all mixed together; for women’s representation in literature, among many factors, women authors must be able to write. She then goes on to discuss the difficulties for women authors. In short, her message is that for there to be a satisfactory portrayal of women, women must have money and privacy in order to write. With its stimulating sentiments about women and literature, A Room of One’s Own is one of the crucial books to consider when looking at a timeline of the portrayal of women in literature throughout history.
                           Although these works were groundbreaking for the time, 20th century literary critics still were not satisfied with the portrayal of women in literature and decided to rewrite them as informed by current feminist ideas, known as feminist revisions. Two of the most famous feminist revisions are Penelopiad, a rewriting of The Odyssey, and Wide Sargasso Sea, a rewriting of Jane Eyre.
Written by Margaret Atwood, Penelopiad is The Odyssey told from a now-dead Penelope’s point of view, viewing her life as a modern-day feminist. Penelope discusses Odysseus who rigged a game forcing her to marry him and continuously lied about his stories. She states, “And so I was handed over to Odysseus like a package of meat.” Penelope discusses her life with Odysseus, discussing how she had no authority as a woman. She also discusses holding off the suitors who are only after the treasures of the kingdom by doing things such as weaving the Laertes shroud to buy time. However, even when this was discovered by the angry suitor, Penelope defends, “I had not been trying to catch men like flies; on the contrary, I’d merely been trying to avoid entanglement myself.” In addition, Penelope discusses dealing with the local gossip about her, raising her son Telemachus and worrying about Odysseus. Finally, the story ends with Odysseus returning home, the slaughter of the 12 maids who also had their stories told throughout the novel and the result of the maids’ anger. In The Penelopiad, one learns the stories of Penelope and the maids, providing not only a more in-depth understanding of The Odyssey but a new perspective that offers insight on both Ancient Greek and modern society and how the role women play in society has changed.
                    In another famous feminist revision, Wide Sargasso Sea written by Jean Rhys, looks at Jane Eyre from another, modern-day feminist perspective. The story focuses on Mr. Rochester’s first wife, the women in the attic. Antoinette was born in Jamaica, and beginning focuses on racial tensions and her inability to fit in with any race. She is married and sent off again to England with Mr. Rochester. He then hears rumors that she had been previously married to a family member, so he becomes distrustful of Antoinette. She then drugs him and in retaliation, he sleeps with the maid. She then goes mad, and ends up locked up with only Grace Poole as company. She has dreams about escaping and setting fire to the house, and the story ends with her leaving the attic with a candle. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys tells the story from the unique perspective of the madwomen in the attic, allowing the reader to learn more about how women’s roles, specifically women of color, have changed over time in society.
By looking at all of these works written over time, one can see how, because the work so strongly reflects the gender roles in the society at the time, literature makes for an interesting way to analyze and learn about our world. Beginning with Ancient Greek society, one can see through Greek mythology and works like The Odyssey, there were strict gender roles with very little ability or expectation for women to have the important roles in the community. Continuing into the 16th century where women still had an extremely narrow role in society, one can see how the women in Shakespeare’s works among others had similar restrictions because of the oppressive society. Then, in the 18th and 19th century, as the beginning of feminist ideas were beginning to occur, one can see similar improvements in the portrayal of women in literature in works from authors like Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Bronte and Bronte sisters. Bronte Sisters had issues like “Gender and Sexuality in their works,” focused on the seven novels written by Charlotte Bronte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, who wrote and published during the middle of the 19th century. Charlotte Bronte, the oldest, most prolific and longest-living of the sisters, wrote Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853), and The Professor (1857) which was the first novel she wrote but was published posthumously. Emily wrote a single novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), and Anne, the youngest, wrote Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). Their novels are often considered proto-feminist, dealing with issues such as women’s independence as well as marriage and sexuality. Here, my own literary interests lie in investigating questions of gender and sexuality in the novel as a genre, the Brontë novels provide a rich source such as.  At the beginning of the summer, I knew that I was interested in analyzing some texts for my senior honors thesis in the Department of English, but because I had not selected a specific texts, I decided to start broad firmly. Therefore, my work consisted of a close reading of each of the seven novels. As I read each novel, I kept detailed notes and wrote down my observations in a reading journal. I supplemented this reading with selections of literary criticism, mostly relating to the novels themselves, but also paying some attention to the broader genre of feminist literary criticism, including Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic. Because I read a wide variety of texts, it was difficult to summarize my work and come to any concrete conclusions, but at the end, I organized my analyses into three categories that represent patterns that I noticed across multiple texts.
The first category, “Narrative Structure,” deals with the two primary narrative strategies employed in the Brontë novels. All but one are narrated in the first person. Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey are the ostensible autobiographies of their female protagonists; in Jane Eyre in particular, the text lends its woman narrator complete authority. Wuthering Heights and Tenant both employ a layered narrative structure, beginning with narration from a male perspective and then switching to a story-within-the-story narrated by a woman. The second category, “Androgyny & Cross-Dressing,” considers how gender-bending characters in the novels both deconstruct and uphold the gender binary. The presence of androgynous women in Wuthering Heights and Shirley and cross-dressing men in Jane Eyre and Villette serve to complicate the question of gender for Bronte sisters. The Third category, “The Marriage Plot,” is particularly pertinent as all seven of the novels are concerned with the marriage plot, defined as a story line that focuses on a hetero-sexual couple and the obstacles that prevent their marriage. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Tenant all feature sexual violence intertwined with their marriage plots, perhaps pointing to the inherent violence of a marital structure which forces women into submission. Charlotte Bronte’s final novel, Villette, is unique among the Bronte novels in featuring a failed marriage plot, unlikely all of the others, this novel does not end with a marriage. This aspect of this novel as well as its intense interest in surveillance and espionage, its depiction of repressed sexuality ..it's  a  major issue and its homoerotic undertones, led me to choose Villette as the natural focus for my senior honors thesis. Therefore, I have continued my research Bronte sisters into the reading criticism concerning Villette specifically as well as widening my research to include more general feminist and queer theory. In addition to address the theme of surveillance as related to the protagonist’s expression or repression of desire and to provide a queer reading of this queer text. Their emphasis on marriage and fell relationship between couples throughout their entire novels.

Ibsen's A Doll's House questions the traditional roles of men and women in 19th-century marriage. To many 19th-century Europeans, this was scandalous. The covenant of marriage was considered holy, and to portray it as Ibsen did was controversial. However, the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw found Ibsen's willingness to examine society without prejudice exhilarating.The Swedish playwright August Strindberg criticised the play in his volume of essays and short stories Getting Married (1884).Strindberg questioned Nora's walking out and leaving her children behind with a man that she herself disapproved of so much that she would not remain with him. Strindberg also considers that Nora's involvement with an illegal financial fraud that involved Nora forging a signature, all done behind her husband's back, and then Nora's lying to her husband regarding Krogstad's blackmail, are serious crimes that should raise questions at the end of the play, when Nora is moralistically judging her husband. And Strindberg points out that Nora's complaint that she and Torvald "have never exchanged one serious word about serious things," is contradicted by the discussions that occur in act one and two.The reasons Nora leaves her husband are complex, and various details are hinted at throughout the play. In the last scene, she tells her husband she has been "greatly wronged" by his disparaging and condescending treatment of her, and his attitude towards her in their marriage – as though she were his "doll wife" and the children in turn have become her "dolls," leading her to doubt her own qualifications to raise her children. She is troubled by her husband's behavior in regard to the scandal of the loaned money. She does not love her husband, she feels they are strangers, she feels completely confused, and suggests that her issues are shared by many women. George Bernard Shaw suggests that she left to begin "a journey in search of self-respect and apprenticeship to life," and that her revolt is "the end of a chapter of human history."
Finally, in modern society, one can see that as people have continually evaluated and adapted their beliefs about the capabilities of women, the literature reflects that, leading to things like feminist revisions such as The Penelopiad and Wide Sargasso Sea. By looking at literary works from Ancient Greece, the 16th century, the 19th century and the 21st century, one can view the history of humanity and women in particular and see how people started dominance over women, how the world have gotten where it is today and how culture might continue in the future, showing the importance of and the value of analyzing the portrayal of women in literature. Actually, many overlapping feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years. Feminism is often divided into three main traditions called liberal, radical and socialist/Marxist feminism, sometimes known as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought. Since the late 20th century, newer forms of feminisms have also emerged.Some branches of feminism track the political leanings of the larger society to a greater or lesser degree or focus on specific topics such as the environmental concerns. In these arguments, focused by me above, the suffering, social harassment, political harassment, economical harassment and emotional temptation to the women in the world. Male domination made them only receptive not argumentative but let's see and analyse how tenure of dominancey could be changed over time.  

------->Dr.Raman Rajesh (Asst.Professor)