Abstract
This MAIS project is a detailed analysis of two works by William Shakespeare - "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet" - and focuses primarily on the feminist and philosophical elements of the two plays, as well as the significance of the historical context in which they were written. The proposed project incorporates a number of elements, most notably philosophical and feminist studies, along with history and cultural studies.

Tags:juliet, dedemona, feminism

Abstract
This paper attempts to show how Shakespeare's representation of Venice in "Othello" shows a diverse city full of prejudice beneath its multifaceted surface-a city full of stereotypes about men of color, about women's desires, and about lower-class men like Iago and Rodrigo. It discusses how the danger, however, is not so much in diversity or multiculturalism in and of itself, but how this diversity, if improperly deployed, can be turned against people like Othello, and used by men like Iago, who strive to vent their hatred upon others rather than upon the society that excludes them because of their class.

From the Paper
"Maurice Hunt further suggests, however, that it is not only Othello who is alienated by Venetian society. "Iago's only bond with his wife Emilia is not intimate, or even affectionate, and it becomes the means that undoes him when he believes he must kill her to prevent her from revealing his knavery." (Hunt, 2003, p.2) Iago, while a Venetian by birth, is also a kind of "private, unofficial" alien in an "existential" sense that he feels denied a rightful position in society. (Hunt, 2003, p.2) The alien Iago forges a bond with official Venetian aliens like Rodrigo and Othello which "serves to underscore an unarticulated affinity felt between two sets of men," but which causes Iago to also feel "painful self-disgust" over his lot in life and forms a "compound impulse to stereotype" the Moor as an alien "devil" and to make him "wish to abuse each victim physically and mentally. (Hunt, 2003, p.2) "

Tags:dedemona, rodrigo, iago, class