The two texts ‘Othello’ and ‘The Book Thief’ are both set in time periods in which women face inequality and injustice. However, both texts deal with these issues very differently. A large factor in how these women live their lives is based on their relationships with family and friends. Another important factor is how these women are treated by men. Most importantly, despite all odds, in both these texts, women stand up to the injustices around them.
The women in these texts all live under regimes controlled and powered primarily by men, but how men treat women in both is extremely representative of the different time periods in which they live.In ‘Othello’, set in approximately the 1500s, during wartime, the title character, Othello, is very possessive and mistrustful of his wife, Desdemona. Othello’s views are typical of the treatment of women at the time. In contrast to this, in ‘The Book Thief’, Hans, the central father figure in the book, is a gentle, kind character. In this world, women are relatively equal to men despite some inequalities.Othello and Desdemona come across as an idyllic, loving couple at the beginning of the play. They marry secretly, out of love. Desdemona is strong minded for a woman at the time, and she rebels against her father by marrying Othello. However, culturally, women are sweet and demure, and she is an ideal wife, always showing love to Othello. However, Othello views her as his property. Although he loves her intensely, he is very insecure because of racism towards him and he is very easily manipulated by Iago who plays on his insecurities, convincing Othello that Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio, his lieutenant. In the early 1600s, the period in which ‘Othello’ was written, just as it has been throughout history, it was widely accepted that a man owned his wife. Othello’s reaction reflects this. He becomes extremely jealous, becoming more susceptible to Iago’s manipulations. He refuses to hear Desdemona’s side of the story and despite her being entirely in the dark about Iago’s plot and what Othello believed, Othello kills her, justifying his actions by telling himself that he is killing her so that she will cheat on no other men, and ruin the lives of no other men. This gives us a shocking insight to the status of women in the world in which Othello is set.
The lives that these women live are controlled in part by how they relate to their families. Liesel and Desdemona have very different families, and this shapes how their lives turn out. Desdemona in ‘Othello’, is the daughter of a rich Venetian politician named Brabantio. He seems to view Desdemona as property, and is horrified by the fact that she elopes to marry Othello. 'Othello' is set in 1500s Venice, where women are treated as property and not as individuals in their own right.Desdemona falls in love with Othello against her father’s wishes. Despite Brabantio’s feigned friendship towards Othello, he is disgusted at the thought of his daughter marrying a black man. He says that their marriage is “against all rules of nature” and he believes that Othello must have “enchanted” Desdemona with “foul charms”. He doesn’t believe that his own daughter could fall in love with somebody of her own accord, perpetuating both racism and the belief that Desdemona could not have had a mind of her own. Brabantio seems to also believe that Desdemona is his property, and that her marriage is a potential business transaction for him. Because of her upbringing, Desdemona has been at the hands of men all her life, hardly ever making decisions for herself. She has virtually no freedom, and in her act of rebellion, marrying Othello, she finds herself in a far more controlling and damaging relationship that consequently leads to her murder at the hands of Othello.
In contrast to this, Liesel Meminger in ‘The Book Thief’ has undergone quite a different upbringing. Orphaned, and then taken in by the loving Hans and Rosa, she has never faced parental discrimination on the grounds of her gender. Liesel loses her real parents at the beginning of the book, as she is the daughter of communists. She is taken in by Hans and Rosa Hubermann, a couple from Molching. Hans is a gentle and kind man, who teaches her to read and coaxes her out of her shell. Rosa is a stern, strict, yet kind-hearted woman, who hurls insults across the room and whoever is there to take them. Liesel’s foster parents never limit Liesel. They provide a loving, safe home for her, where she grows up to become a strong willed, intelligent young woman. She is never objectified or assumed to be weak because of her gender. Race and prejudice prove not to be an issue to the Hubermanns when Max, a Jew, becomes part of the family, hiding in the basement, and Liesel and Max become close friends, sharing with each other a love of words and fighting. The Hubermanns obviously have no prejudiced views and are very selfless. This passes on to Liesel.
Desdemona and Liesel are not altogether very different people; both are strong willed and intelligent. However their upbringing and circumstance drastically altered the lives of both of them.
Hans Hubermann in ‘The Book Thief’, is the polar opposite to Othello. We are in a different time period here, in and around 1940, during World War II. Hans treats women with as much, if not more respect than men, and he is a gentle, kind character. Hans has lived a long life with his wife, Rosa, who at this time is the main provider for the family. The world wars uprooted many traditional gender roles and Hans is, at the time outlined in the book, mostly unemployed. Despite a small income, they decide to foster a child, Liesel Meminger. When Liesel, the central character, arrives, Rosa is an extremely un-maternal figure, who throws words across the room and has a face like cardboard. It is Hans who takes on a maternal role, sitting with Liesel while she has nightmares and eventually teaching her to read. This gift of words is what gives Liesel her future, her passion, her independance. Hans treats her as he would any child regardless of gender, and Liesel becomes a strong, well-spoken, kind person who is not afraid to stand up to authority. The children raised in the generation of WWII have grown up to become the adults of the generation in which gender roles have dramatically changed, with far more equality for women than has been achieved for the majority of history.
These two characters prove that how men treat women is extremely representative of the world in which they live.
An extremely important part of both these stories is that women stand up to the injustices around them, both faced by themselves and by others. Emilia in ‘Othello’ is somebody that, throughout the play, is subservient and doesn’t question Iago’s plots. However, at the end, she stands up to her husband and gives her life to make sure that justice is served. Emilia is married to an extremely manipulative, misanthropic, and misogynistic man, named Iago. Iago is the catalyst for all the conflict in ‘Othello’, as he hates Othello so strongly that he will go about anything to destroy him. He uses Emilia in his plot to tear Othello apart through Othello’s insecurities, by convincing Emilia to steal the handkerchief from her closest friend Desdemona, Othello’s wife, and to plant it with Cassio, Othello’s right hand man. Emilia plays along with Iago’s plan, as she tries to please him. Iago has control over Emilia throughout the entire play. However, at the end, when she finds Desdemona dying at the hands of Othello, and Othello himself confessing to the murder, she screams and raises the alarm. When Othello mentions the handkerchief, she is the first person to realise what Iago had truly done, and she realises that it was her fault, too. She reveals Iago’s treachery to Othello and witnesses. Othello realises the truth, and Iago stabs Emilia in revenge. She dies knowing that she has stood up to injustice and that Iago will pay for what he has done.
In comparison, Rosa Hubermann in ‘The Book Thief’ is somebody who will very clearly fight injustice. She is described harshly, and under many lights can seem mean and heartless, but by the end of the book, we learn that she has more of a heart than most people. She stands up to injustice by opening her home up to someone who could potentially cause her death.Rosa is often compared to a wardrobe, or a piece of cardboard. She is prone to using a wooden spoon and will complain about and criticise both Hans, her gentle husband, and Liesel, her foster child. She has great responsibility caring for her family, and yet is extremely unmaternal. When Max enters the scene, we see an unexpected side to Rosa. Yes, she took in Liesel, but Max is different. Max is a serious liability, a danger to the lives of her loved ones. Yet Rosa quietly cares for him, takes him in without a question, and never once speaks a harsh word about him. She changes greatly while caring for Max, in fact, and we see a side to her that we always knew was there but never quite saw. Rosa, with her tough exterior, stands up to injustice by opening up the doors to her wardrobe and showing her heart to those who need it the most. Her decidedly dangerous acts of compassion are how she fights the regime forced upon her.
Emilia and Rosa are extremely different people, and yet they both stand up to injustice and make sure that in the end, they did the right thing.The women in these two texts all have families that influence the course of their lives. They all live in worlds dominated by men, and in wartime. The way men treat them affects their lives and relationships. These women all face the injustices suffered by themselves and others. In many different ways, these women react to their situations and change their own lives and the lives of others, for either better or worse.
The film ‘The King’s Speech’, is set in the same time period as ‘The Book Thief’, and the position of women in the film is similar. While the men do have most of the power, women are not viewed as property in the same way they were in the world of ‘Othello’. They are seen as individuals. The two main characters in the film, Bertie and Lionel, both have loving families and care deeply for the women in their life, Elizabeth and Mrs Logue. However, in this film there are hardly any female characters.Elizabeth is Bertie’s lifeline. His speech impediment greatly affects his life, but she is always there to support him. She knows exactly what he needs, for example, when Bertie claims that he will see no more speech therapists, she goes out anyway to find the best person for him. Lionel’s informality and disrespect for the monarchy are clearly unpleasant to her, and she knows that many people would disapprove of her going to someone so unqualified and unprofessional/ She overcomes this and convinces Bertie to go anyway. Bertie and Elizabeth’s children are both young girls, and they are loved very much by their parents. They are very lucky children. We hear that Bertie’s childhood was filled with neglect and abuse at the hands of a nanny. His own children have been born into a changing time, where they are cared for by their own parents, and in fact his elder daughter will later become queen.
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