5/11/2023 0 Comments Without a prompter othelloGender equality, it noted, will also reduce family violence: Instead society reacts to family violence as a one-off crisis, after the event. The commission noted that too little effort is devoted to preventing the occurrence of family violence in the first place. Folger Shakespeare Library, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SAĪt the end of Othello – after the deaths of Desdemona, Othello and Emilia – Lodovico describes the tragedy as the result of Iago’s villainy and Othello’s failings, rather than due to societal attitudes towards women, or systemic violence. Othello’s Lamentation (1857), by William Salter. I didn’t have a language to describe what was wrong in my relationship. Before she dies Emilia asks her “O, who hath done this deed?” Desdemona replies, “Nobody I myself.” And indeed, one victim told the Commission: The only rebuke of Othello is made by Lodovico (representative of the Venetian duke and senate) who, observing Othello strike Desdemona, tells him to “make amends” – but makes no other intervention.ĭesdemona herself struggles to identify or understand her abuse. Iago’s abuse of his wife Emilia, for instance, is not commented on or apparently even noticed by the other characters. Venetian society is barely aware of male violence towards women. She accepts his abuse as “my wretched fortune” asking, “What shall I do to win my lord again?” Women and children, like men, are socialised in a world where such beliefs are embedded in language, the family and other common social institutions and practices … often women believe that the violence is their own fault.ĭesdemona attempts to manage Othello’s violence trying to woo him back. Societal beliefs also affect victims’ perceptions of the criminality of such actions. Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags.ĭesdemona herself adopts the narrative of being the property of others, saying she has preserved her body for Othello “from any other unlawful touch”. In the Shakespeare play, Iago, when describing Desdemona’s secret marriage to Othello to her father Brabantio, characterises it as an act of theft. Stereotypes about men and women are reinforced through practices such as social tolerance of discrimination and the idea that violence against women is sometimes justified by women’s behaviour – for example, if a woman has sex with another man.ĭeeply embedded societal beliefs – for example, the belief … that men’s intimate partners and children are their possessions to do with as they please that women are inferior to men – influence men’s choices to commit sexual and other acts of violence. Factors shaping it include gender inequality and community attitudes towards women: The Commission shows the causes of family violence to be complex. The implication is that if she actually had an affair with Cassio, Othello would have considered the killing justified, and not taken his own life. Othello suicides not because he killed Desdemona, but rather because he killed her on the mistaken understanding that she had desired and loved another man. It also reports:Ī demonstrable link between family violence, homicide and suicide … a large number of men who died from suicide in Victoria between 20 had a history of family violence. The commission reports strangulation as a common method used by male perpetrators to kill female victims. Othello and Desdemona by Alexandre Marie Colin. “She’s gone, I am abused, and my relief / Must be to loather her” quickly escalates to “I’ll tear her all to pieces!” and “chop her into messes.” He makes increasingly violent threats to harm and kill Desdemona. Having been mistakenly told that Desdemona is having an affair with his lieutenant Cassio, Othello repeatedly verbally abuses Desdemona in sexual terms – he calls her a public whore, a commoner, a strumpet and a devil. Othello’s abuse of Desdemona matches the Commission’s description of family violence as a multifaceted pattern of escalating behaviour rather than a single event. What does the recent Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence tell us about the Venetian general’s murder of his wife Desdemona, and his subsequent suicide? How might the commission’s recommendations have prevented the violence in Shakespeare’s play? And how does a 21st-century perspective on family violence deepen our insights and pathos on viewing the play? ![]() Bell Shakespeare’s production of Othello is touring Australia until December 2016.
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