... honour are attributed to women of different class. Margaret and Bianca are forgiven for their promiscuity while Hero and Desdemona are punished. This suggests an inconsistency in the idea of female honour, which is clearly dependent on social status. Hero is a chaste, virginal woman. However, while Desdemona ... and knowledge of her innocence before her duty to her husband. She subscribes to the male Elizabethan ideal of honour rather than doing what is expected of her as a woman. The refusal to submit to the male ideal of female honour can also be found in the character ... characters...

• Word Count: 4511
• Approx Pages: 18
• Grade Level: High School

... mistreatment with little resistance. The fact that men abused women without consequence was a common one in Shakespeare's day and age. Despite the Chivalric Code during the Middle Ages and the ideal of the Courtier during the Renaissance, there was no real societal consequence for husbands that mistreated their wives. On the contrary, women were regarded as the property of their men ... . "Desdemona performs no such acts of defiance, but her erotic submission, conjoined with Iago's murderous cunning, far more effectively, if unintentionally, subverts her husband's carefully fashioned id...

• Word Count: 4504
• Approx Pages: 18

... the marriage of two minds" as embodied in Othello and Desdemona. They marry in spite of the protests of Desdemona's father, and she faithfully follows her husband wherever he is sent. Their romantic marriage, however, is ruined by the villainous machinations of Iago. Othello is eventually led to murder his beloved, turning ... control, weeping and begging for her life or at least for time. Othello will give her neither. Unbelievably, the saintly Desdemona remains loyal to her husband till the end. Even after he smothers her and she is dying, Desdemona tries to protect Othello's good name...

• Word Count: 4125
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School