Sofia KourousDr. StellaInglese 2 (B)01/04/14“If wives fall”Shakespeare's Othello: society and the tragic role of EmiliaThe women in Othello are few. A total of three have lines and only two are truly important characters. The women in the play, in accordance with the Elizabethan English ideologies of Shakespeare's time and the gender norms of the society in which the play takes place, are put firmly "in their place." They are meek, soft-spoken and submissive, treated as possessions by dominant men and almost completely ignored as individuals with their own thoughts and emotions. Lewd jokes and jokes about women's sexuality are rampant, and husbands get away with frequent misogynistic rants at their wives' expense. The female character who plays the most dynamic role in Othello is Emilia. Over the course of the show, we observe her evolution from a simple handmaid, to a faithful wife who tolerates her husband's mistreatment, to a complex woman with mixed feelings and fluctuating emotions. In this way, Emilia belies the total weakness of women in Othello and elevates herself to a kind of minor tragic hero, a preliminary champion of feminism. To analyze Shakespeare's women, one must be aware of the female situation both in the playwright's work time period and in the period in which his play was written. The women in Othello suggest that they have "internalized society's expectations of them and, apart from moments of private conversation, behave as men expect, believing this to be 'natural'" (Emilia's behavior (and Desdemona ) towards men for the majority of the play is an example of this behavior considered normal at the time This conformity to social norms can be perceived as a weakness... in the center of the card... woman, and her views much later represents a realistic woman, who is her own person and who does not define herself in terms of the men in her life.” (Guffey 2005). University states that Emilia's wisdom, experience and years contrast with Desdemona's young and naive view of the world, particularly gender dynamics. Emilia knows her duties as a wife and what is expected of her, but she also recognizes the many male/female contradictions and double standards present in their society and is far from satisfied with it. The extremity of Emilia's feminist ideologies is debatable, although her position as a skeptic in the play is well established.