I think that copyright is one of the software ownerships, which is protected by a form of computer software ownership, (this means that you are not allowed to distribute copies of it, not allowed to reproduce a copyrighted work and not allowed to perform or exhibit the copyrighted work to public) and obtained that you can own the expressions of ideas, but not own the ideas themselves. It means that software developer or any software company can get the idea of the software and produces a kind of copy of it. It is legal to it, because it was the copied idea.
According to the copyright laws only protect the program, but both source code and object code are understood in copyright law to be literary works, that is formal expression of ideas. It is not mainly to protect the software as well, because the code of the software is in reality of only a piece of the software. This is a problem similar to what I mentioned above; your competitor can study idea without directly coping, make comparable and create better software sometimes, because it was idea that they copied, there is nothing you can do about it. The behaviour of software is another aspect that is not protected by copyright. This is a quite interesting example which was happened a conflict between Linux and Windows Microsoft for a couple of years ago. When Linux was produced a new version of operative system, is called Lindows. The Lindows operative system from Linux looked and behaved like Windows operative system of Microsoft. Microsoft got a risk on head and was afraid this could be reason to lose customers. That was why Microsoft took to court against Linux, but this complicated problem was solved at the court, as it did not actually infringe any copyright laws. I think that this is a opened problem which will often be in the future, if we do not have any copyrights law that can protect the behaviour.
Trade secrecy laws are another form of protection. The trade secrecy laws seem to me that it involves an aspect of people doing. You are an employees in the computer software company (whatever company) and have job like; software designer, software developer etc. You know that you are not allowed to give away or disclose information about how the company created the software or any kind of trading of secrets.
Patent laws are another form of protection which is one of the tree protections and has a strongest form of protection for computer software. When you found out something new and proof that you was only one to invent. This means that you have a patent with rights to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention and the right to license others to make, use or sell it.
I am not defending arguments to bring up against ownership of computer software, because I know that the owner of the software or some software development companies use a lot of money to create software. I also know that the owners have to use much time to test, design, redesign, and evaluate the software, before it is out for using. I believe that we have to pay the software we use, is a kind of owner’s payment. Except some software are like Novell Server, Microsoft Windows Server etc. too expensive. You do not have chance to own one, but those expensive software are special for company or for who are very interested. As you know that some software has a period of trial which normally gives users 30 days trial duration. If you keep on to use the trial software after finishing 30 days trial, so you are able to pay the owner for a licence.
In conclusion I think that we users have to respect ownership, because if you do not give owner respectfully and use software for free that is a kind of stealing. Ok, now you image that you own a car, or bicycle which is parking outside your house or on street. Someone walks through the house and take it away without asking you that is stealing. If you say that you do not own the car or the bicycle. What can you do to stop someone taking the car?
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Gender Equality
One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces the creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine.
In the early years of her age a female child, like male children exists only for herself and is hardly aware of the fact that as an adult she would be sexually differentiated. It is not until when she grows up and is faced with occasional denial of some rights, she realizes that she is the disadvantaged sex, ‘the woman’ that men think is inferior to them both, intellectually and socially.
This attitude of men is liable to have two kinds of impacts, the extent of which highly depends on the economic and social development of the society a woman lives in. women living in the under-developed nations of Africa and Asia, generally accept the inferior status as the only option. On the contrary, women of the more developed countries like America, often fight for their rights and donot settle for low standards. It is the unwavering motivation of these women, that has successfully produced some prominent American activists like, Elizabeth BlackWell, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone, who campaigned to expand opportunities for women like, the granting of equal rights and also to improve their lives in general.
The demand for women’s rights includes not only the assurance of equal rights (e.g , property, legal, political, marital, educational and employment), with men, but also the removal of all forms of discrimination against women on the basis of sex. The demand for them has been denied both by the custom and by the law and the struggle to gain them is one of the basic movements for human liberty.
In the modern world, the status of women varies widely from country to country and from one social class to another within countries. The traditional view of women, as intellectually and socially inferior to men, continues to prevail in certain areas. In rural part of some less developed nations, for example, women have little or no personal independence. They pass from the control of the father, to that of the husband, and function only as servant of the husband and bearer of his children.
In most countries women have the right to vote and certain other political and legal rights. Traditional attitudes, nonetheless, restrict women’s activities to some extent, especially in business, industry, the professions, and higher education. Even in societies where women have been given broader responsibilities and power, men have normally dominated political life. The emergence of classes, states, and major religions has universally strengthened male dominance, and the rise of capitalism has furthered this tendency.
‘EARLY HISTORY’
Preliterate cultures: In both hunting and foraging and early settled agricultural societies, women contribute directly and indispensably to subsistence, frequently controlling and collecting the essentials for survival. No known societies have entrusted any technological activities specifically to women. Although such female activities as cooking and food preparation approximate technology, men monopolize hunting, butchering, and the processing of hard materials. KINSHIP provides the basic social organization in preliterate societies; work is allocated according to gender and generation and there is great sexual segregation. Women are responsible for child-bearing and homemaking and men belong in public world of employment and politics.
Western cultures: the classical Greek civilization in keeping with its cultural hostility towards women, severely curtailed their political participation. Athens firmly relegated women, with slaves and children, to the household which male citizens dominated and represented in the polity.
Traditional Judaic societies also restricted women’s social role and encouraged sexual segregation. Judaism also reflected a historic revolt against a pre-historic female-centered cosmology. Jewish monotheism is clearly found upon the worship of a male creator and lawgiver.
The roman state granted even fewer rights to women than the Greeks did, but permitted them greater personal freedom. Although a husband possessed the right of life and death over his wife, roman culture never expressed deep hostility toward female sexuality.
Though the majority of the early converts to Christianity were mainly women, the architects of Christian orthodoxy, notably Saint Paul, mistrusted sexuality in general and women in particular. Increasingly, Christianity stressed both Eve’s responsibility for the fall of the human race from divine grace and Mary’s virginity. Women were denied official religious roles until, eventually, a place was made for them in the religious orders.
Eastern cultures: the dominant cultures of the Islamic countries, India, china, and Japan rested on sharp social distinctions and on the labor of peasants and tribal masses. Official ideologies and ruling elites saw the seclusion of women as essential to social and political order.
Islam confirmed and strengthened female subordination among the people it conquered and, by including women’s status in holy law, or Sharia, made subsequent change difficult. Allowing polygamy, it restricted the number of wives to four and insisted on equal treatment. Declaring a woman worth half a man with respect to inheritance and testimony, it encouraged female INFANTICIDE. Islam veiled women and isolated them from all men, other than their own relatives. Yet Islamic women were entitled to full support for themselves and their children form their husbands.
In India, the caste ENDOGAMY stressed marriage as the central purpose of women’s life. Marriage policies and a deep mistrust of female sexuality, especially among the Brahmans, resulted in pre-puberty marriage and SUTTEE, i.e. the wife burning herself to death on the husband’s funeral pyre, which was an attempt to ban remarriage of widows. Hinduism emphasized the nature of women as benevolent wives.
Confucianism, originating in the 6th century B.C. emphasized that the duty of the wife was subject to her husband and to his parents. Although there was no polygamy, the husband could take concubines.
In eastern countries women lost most of their property rights and all political roles. Men practiced polygamy, kept concubines, and could repudiate their wives at will.
In the early years of civilization women, along with unequal rights in all spheres of life, were also subject to persecution and torture. In Egypt, beautiful women were slaughtered in the name of their god so as to please him.
Before the advent of Islam, that is to say about 1400 years ago, when there was no concept of education, knowledge and moral values, people used to bury new-born babies if they were females.
Even to this day in some rural counterparts of underdeveloped countries, women are married to dogs, to the HolyQuran and to men as old as 5 times their age. The concept of ‘Hang’ is highly prevalent in rural areas of developing countries like Pakistan, where if a man from tribe A murders a man in tribe B then to compensate, tribe A offers that, tribe B may choose a girl form tribe A to be married to a man or relative of the murdered from tribe B. Girls as old as 11 have known to have been offered to marry 70 year old men.
Early struggles for equal rights in the united states: in the united states, widespread religious revivalism at the beginning of the 19th century inspired the early women’s rights movement. Large numbers of middle class women joined societies whose efforts centered on religious conversion and on moral and social reform. The basic motivation was derived from the Anti-slavery convention in 1840 when women were barred from participating in the conference and were made to sit behind the curtains. This experience of discrimination inspired them to organize the first women’s convention. For the convention Elizabeth Stanton, Lucretia Mott and many others wrote a declaration that stated that men and women were created equal and that, like men, women were born with certain natural rights. The document criticized men for denying women the right to vote, the right to hold property, equal terms in a divorce and custody of children. It also criticized men for blocking women’s access to higher education, the professions and ‘nearly all the profitable employments.’
Property rights: in 1848 New York state passed law allowing women to acquire and retain assets independently of their husbands. This was the first law that established the idea of a woman having a legal status, independent of her husband, after marriage.
Right to vote: women gained the right to vote in the 1920’s. The 14th amendment provided that all citizens were guaranteed equal protection under law and that no citizen could be denied process of law.
Equal pay act: the equal pay act made it illegal to pay different wages to men and women who performed the same work. However, the new law had little effect on narrowing the gap between the sexes. Most female workers remained in jobs traditionally held by women, offering low wages and little prospect for advancement. In 1963 female workers earned 58.9% of average men’s earnings and by 1995 the earnings increased to 71.4%of the amount that men earned.
Reproductive rights: abortions have been widely performed by doctors, midwives, and pregnant women throughout history. However, by the late 1800s the majority of U.S states made it a crime to perform and obtain an abortion, except when the life of the mother is in danger. These days, abortion is legal under specific circumstances. Some countries with severe population have the most liberal abortion policies. China for example places no restriction on abortion. However, in Canada, where there is no over-population problem, abortion is illegal unless the pregnant woman’s life is in danger.
Protective labor legislation: when increasing number of women began to enter the labor force, some social reformers grew concerned about the impact of long working hours on women’s health. They made efforts to limit women’s working hours and argued that women’s role as mothers required that they be given special protection in workplace, flexible timings and also once or twice a maternal leave. But the opponents of this legislation argue that special rules for women would inhibit women’s struggle for equality with men, even if the legislation was limited only to labor laws.
Women’s rights today: since World War II the position of women around the globe has begun to change at an accelerating rate. Women have gained most in politically progressive and economically developed nations. In highly developed countries, women account for about 30-40% of the total labor force, and 5-10% in less developed countries. However, female earnings have not improved to a very substantial extent. Throughout the world women continue to earn less than men for comparable work. Women’s near exclusion to earn high incomes is closely related to their formal political and legal rights, and also to the persistence of traditional religious, cultural and family values.
Although, women have acquired the right to vote, they donot exercise power in proportion to their numbers. A few exceptional women have attained the highest political offices: Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher.
Women have also failed to gain access to higher education. Women’s illiteracy has declined dramatically in the past few decades, but only during the 1970s and ‘80s have American women finally constituted 20% of those in professional training—medicine, law, business. In third world countries, preference is normally given to men for advanced economic and governmental sectors. Also in many countries, defenders of traditional and cultural values regard liberation of women as another manifestation of western domination.
Overall, while the needs of women in different countries vary, and the rate of progress is inconsistent, increasing numbers of women around the world are in a fair way to dethrone the myth of femininity; are beginning to affirm their independence in concrete ways and recognizing their need to be full and equal members of the society.
You can order a high-quality custom essay, term paper, research paper, thesis, dissertation, speech, book report or book review from our professional custom writing service. We have employed more than 700 highly qualified Ph.D. and Master's academic writers to provide students with professional academic writing help. Feel free to contact our company right now!
In the early years of her age a female child, like male children exists only for herself and is hardly aware of the fact that as an adult she would be sexually differentiated. It is not until when she grows up and is faced with occasional denial of some rights, she realizes that she is the disadvantaged sex, ‘the woman’ that men think is inferior to them both, intellectually and socially.
This attitude of men is liable to have two kinds of impacts, the extent of which highly depends on the economic and social development of the society a woman lives in. women living in the under-developed nations of Africa and Asia, generally accept the inferior status as the only option. On the contrary, women of the more developed countries like America, often fight for their rights and donot settle for low standards. It is the unwavering motivation of these women, that has successfully produced some prominent American activists like, Elizabeth BlackWell, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone, who campaigned to expand opportunities for women like, the granting of equal rights and also to improve their lives in general.
The demand for women’s rights includes not only the assurance of equal rights (e.g , property, legal, political, marital, educational and employment), with men, but also the removal of all forms of discrimination against women on the basis of sex. The demand for them has been denied both by the custom and by the law and the struggle to gain them is one of the basic movements for human liberty.
In the modern world, the status of women varies widely from country to country and from one social class to another within countries. The traditional view of women, as intellectually and socially inferior to men, continues to prevail in certain areas. In rural part of some less developed nations, for example, women have little or no personal independence. They pass from the control of the father, to that of the husband, and function only as servant of the husband and bearer of his children.
In most countries women have the right to vote and certain other political and legal rights. Traditional attitudes, nonetheless, restrict women’s activities to some extent, especially in business, industry, the professions, and higher education. Even in societies where women have been given broader responsibilities and power, men have normally dominated political life. The emergence of classes, states, and major religions has universally strengthened male dominance, and the rise of capitalism has furthered this tendency.
‘EARLY HISTORY’
Preliterate cultures: In both hunting and foraging and early settled agricultural societies, women contribute directly and indispensably to subsistence, frequently controlling and collecting the essentials for survival. No known societies have entrusted any technological activities specifically to women. Although such female activities as cooking and food preparation approximate technology, men monopolize hunting, butchering, and the processing of hard materials. KINSHIP provides the basic social organization in preliterate societies; work is allocated according to gender and generation and there is great sexual segregation. Women are responsible for child-bearing and homemaking and men belong in public world of employment and politics.
Western cultures: the classical Greek civilization in keeping with its cultural hostility towards women, severely curtailed their political participation. Athens firmly relegated women, with slaves and children, to the household which male citizens dominated and represented in the polity.
Traditional Judaic societies also restricted women’s social role and encouraged sexual segregation. Judaism also reflected a historic revolt against a pre-historic female-centered cosmology. Jewish monotheism is clearly found upon the worship of a male creator and lawgiver.
The roman state granted even fewer rights to women than the Greeks did, but permitted them greater personal freedom. Although a husband possessed the right of life and death over his wife, roman culture never expressed deep hostility toward female sexuality.
Though the majority of the early converts to Christianity were mainly women, the architects of Christian orthodoxy, notably Saint Paul, mistrusted sexuality in general and women in particular. Increasingly, Christianity stressed both Eve’s responsibility for the fall of the human race from divine grace and Mary’s virginity. Women were denied official religious roles until, eventually, a place was made for them in the religious orders.
Eastern cultures: the dominant cultures of the Islamic countries, India, china, and Japan rested on sharp social distinctions and on the labor of peasants and tribal masses. Official ideologies and ruling elites saw the seclusion of women as essential to social and political order.
Islam confirmed and strengthened female subordination among the people it conquered and, by including women’s status in holy law, or Sharia, made subsequent change difficult. Allowing polygamy, it restricted the number of wives to four and insisted on equal treatment. Declaring a woman worth half a man with respect to inheritance and testimony, it encouraged female INFANTICIDE. Islam veiled women and isolated them from all men, other than their own relatives. Yet Islamic women were entitled to full support for themselves and their children form their husbands.
In India, the caste ENDOGAMY stressed marriage as the central purpose of women’s life. Marriage policies and a deep mistrust of female sexuality, especially among the Brahmans, resulted in pre-puberty marriage and SUTTEE, i.e. the wife burning herself to death on the husband’s funeral pyre, which was an attempt to ban remarriage of widows. Hinduism emphasized the nature of women as benevolent wives.
Confucianism, originating in the 6th century B.C. emphasized that the duty of the wife was subject to her husband and to his parents. Although there was no polygamy, the husband could take concubines.
In eastern countries women lost most of their property rights and all political roles. Men practiced polygamy, kept concubines, and could repudiate their wives at will.
In the early years of civilization women, along with unequal rights in all spheres of life, were also subject to persecution and torture. In Egypt, beautiful women were slaughtered in the name of their god so as to please him.
Before the advent of Islam, that is to say about 1400 years ago, when there was no concept of education, knowledge and moral values, people used to bury new-born babies if they were females.
Even to this day in some rural counterparts of underdeveloped countries, women are married to dogs, to the HolyQuran and to men as old as 5 times their age. The concept of ‘Hang’ is highly prevalent in rural areas of developing countries like Pakistan, where if a man from tribe A murders a man in tribe B then to compensate, tribe A offers that, tribe B may choose a girl form tribe A to be married to a man or relative of the murdered from tribe B. Girls as old as 11 have known to have been offered to marry 70 year old men.
Early struggles for equal rights in the united states: in the united states, widespread religious revivalism at the beginning of the 19th century inspired the early women’s rights movement. Large numbers of middle class women joined societies whose efforts centered on religious conversion and on moral and social reform. The basic motivation was derived from the Anti-slavery convention in 1840 when women were barred from participating in the conference and were made to sit behind the curtains. This experience of discrimination inspired them to organize the first women’s convention. For the convention Elizabeth Stanton, Lucretia Mott and many others wrote a declaration that stated that men and women were created equal and that, like men, women were born with certain natural rights. The document criticized men for denying women the right to vote, the right to hold property, equal terms in a divorce and custody of children. It also criticized men for blocking women’s access to higher education, the professions and ‘nearly all the profitable employments.’
Property rights: in 1848 New York state passed law allowing women to acquire and retain assets independently of their husbands. This was the first law that established the idea of a woman having a legal status, independent of her husband, after marriage.
Right to vote: women gained the right to vote in the 1920’s. The 14th amendment provided that all citizens were guaranteed equal protection under law and that no citizen could be denied process of law.
Equal pay act: the equal pay act made it illegal to pay different wages to men and women who performed the same work. However, the new law had little effect on narrowing the gap between the sexes. Most female workers remained in jobs traditionally held by women, offering low wages and little prospect for advancement. In 1963 female workers earned 58.9% of average men’s earnings and by 1995 the earnings increased to 71.4%of the amount that men earned.
Reproductive rights: abortions have been widely performed by doctors, midwives, and pregnant women throughout history. However, by the late 1800s the majority of U.S states made it a crime to perform and obtain an abortion, except when the life of the mother is in danger. These days, abortion is legal under specific circumstances. Some countries with severe population have the most liberal abortion policies. China for example places no restriction on abortion. However, in Canada, where there is no over-population problem, abortion is illegal unless the pregnant woman’s life is in danger.
Protective labor legislation: when increasing number of women began to enter the labor force, some social reformers grew concerned about the impact of long working hours on women’s health. They made efforts to limit women’s working hours and argued that women’s role as mothers required that they be given special protection in workplace, flexible timings and also once or twice a maternal leave. But the opponents of this legislation argue that special rules for women would inhibit women’s struggle for equality with men, even if the legislation was limited only to labor laws.
Women’s rights today: since World War II the position of women around the globe has begun to change at an accelerating rate. Women have gained most in politically progressive and economically developed nations. In highly developed countries, women account for about 30-40% of the total labor force, and 5-10% in less developed countries. However, female earnings have not improved to a very substantial extent. Throughout the world women continue to earn less than men for comparable work. Women’s near exclusion to earn high incomes is closely related to their formal political and legal rights, and also to the persistence of traditional religious, cultural and family values.
Although, women have acquired the right to vote, they donot exercise power in proportion to their numbers. A few exceptional women have attained the highest political offices: Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher.
Women have also failed to gain access to higher education. Women’s illiteracy has declined dramatically in the past few decades, but only during the 1970s and ‘80s have American women finally constituted 20% of those in professional training—medicine, law, business. In third world countries, preference is normally given to men for advanced economic and governmental sectors. Also in many countries, defenders of traditional and cultural values regard liberation of women as another manifestation of western domination.
Overall, while the needs of women in different countries vary, and the rate of progress is inconsistent, increasing numbers of women around the world are in a fair way to dethrone the myth of femininity; are beginning to affirm their independence in concrete ways and recognizing their need to be full and equal members of the society.
You can order a high-quality custom essay, term paper, research paper, thesis, dissertation, speech, book report or book review from our professional custom writing service. We have employed more than 700 highly qualified Ph.D. and Master's academic writers to provide students with professional academic writing help. Feel free to contact our company right now!
Desdemona
In Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello, Othello’s wife Desdemona is portrayed as a well-rounded woman. She displays confidence when it is needed, but is also a devoted bold true wife. She is young, sexual and recently married, and in the play she occasionally displays a somewhat chiding wit. At times we see Desdemona as being submissive, but only ever to Othello. Although she exhibits an independent personality, she seems to make an effort not to come across as being too independent. She especially has to convince Othello of this, as he questions her fidelity. Until the end Desdemona seemed to have been capable of rising above the demands placed upon her.
Many like to see Desdemona as being a stereotypically weak and submissive woman of that era. But this ignores the conviction and authority she displays in her opening speech as she states “My noble father, / I do perceive here a divided duty”, this conviction is also later seen in her terse fury after Othello strikes her in front of many people, she then says “I have not deserved this”. Although Desdemona is an independent character she does display some submissiveness. This seldom seen submissive nature is most notable when she takes credit for her own murder, when in response to Emilia’s question, “O, who hath done this deed?” Desdemona replies as her final words, “Nobody, I myself. Farewell/ commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell.”
Contradictorily the play also represents Desdemona as a modest and faithful wife, who possesses a bold and independent personality. It is possible that this contradiction was intentional, the purpose being to portray the way Desdemona feels after defending her choice of marriage to her father, and then virtually straight away having to defend her fidelity to her husband, Othello. In the beginning of the play she appears to be supremely independent, and courageous as she stands up to her father with her choice of marriage, as Othello pays tribute to her “high and plenteous wit and invention”. It was Desdemona who first gave the Othello the hint to ask her to marry him, which is heard in Othello’s speech to the Duke and others “if I had a friend that lov'd her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, / And that would woo her”. She also speaks with confidence when she tells the Duke that she “did love the Moor to live with him”, and also asks whether she may go to Cyprus with him.
Midway through the play Desdemona must struggle, as she desperately tries to convince Othello that she is not too independent. It also appears that Brabantio failed to understand his own daughter. The impression that she had grown up under the guidance of a possessive type of father is given. Nothing in his household, including his daughter had ever been challenged. He seems to have failed to realise that over the years she had grown up to be a person in her own mind. Brabantio was not the type of father that Desdemona could have shares her feelings with, and had never had a close enough relationship to open her heart to him. It is clear that Brabantio is appalled with her choice in husband as he states he evidently would have preferred “the wealthy curled darlings of our nation”.
Throughout the entire play we see that Desdemona has an absolute trust in Othello, as she states, “My noble Moor/ is true of mind, and made of no such baseness/ As jealous creatures are. She continually gives Othello entire obedience as we see the word “obey” appear in the marriage service. She at all times seeks to please him and is also very sensitive, “a child to chiding”. This is why we assume she did not tell Othello about the handkerchief. She is deeply in love with him, even after “his stubbornness, his checks and frowns”. Even Iago, the man that plots against her happiness, admits “she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested”.
It is unfortunate that Desdemona has fallen in love with a man that trusts others over her, which in turn leads to the murder of her. Emilia’s question is one the audience would be asking too, “what should such a food do with so good a wife?” Emilia plays quite an important role in the play, as her comparative vulgarity emphasizes the purity of Desdemona, who fails to understand how any woman can deceive her husband, and can hardly pronounce the wore “whore”.
Desdemona’s character is strong in some ways, and quite weak in others. She also has no mother, which is used for the dramatic effect of Desdemona on her own resources in moments of stress and need. Desdemona’s estrangement from her father is quite decisive, and in this situation Desdemona has no woman upon whom she can rely and to whom she might turn for help and sympathy when her father shuts the door against her. There is no one to give her any support, this fuels our sympathy for her lonely hand and increases the pathos of her situation. Desdemona is a loving wife, but unfortunately not one with a strong character all round.
Othello murders Desdemona, as he smothers her with a pillow in a bed covered in her wedding sheets. This murder seems to be symbolic as she is now literally suffocating beneath the demands put on her fidelity. Since her opening lines Desdemona seemed capable of winning against all odds, and meeting demands that were placed upon her, until Othello takes away all her strength. Desdemona possesses a true, kind heart. She is a very trustworthy character which only increases our sympathy for her, as she doesn’t in any way deserve what has come to her. Desdemona maintains right to her death that she is “guiltless”, and the audience can only begin to imagine her fear when she awakens to find Othello standing over her with murder in his eyes.
You can order a high-quality custom essay, term paper, research paper, thesis, dissertation, speech, book report or book review from our professional custom writing service. We have employed more than 700 highly qualified Ph.D. and Master's academic writers to provide students with professional academic writing help. Feel free to contact our company right now!
Many like to see Desdemona as being a stereotypically weak and submissive woman of that era. But this ignores the conviction and authority she displays in her opening speech as she states “My noble father, / I do perceive here a divided duty”, this conviction is also later seen in her terse fury after Othello strikes her in front of many people, she then says “I have not deserved this”. Although Desdemona is an independent character she does display some submissiveness. This seldom seen submissive nature is most notable when she takes credit for her own murder, when in response to Emilia’s question, “O, who hath done this deed?” Desdemona replies as her final words, “Nobody, I myself. Farewell/ commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell.”
Contradictorily the play also represents Desdemona as a modest and faithful wife, who possesses a bold and independent personality. It is possible that this contradiction was intentional, the purpose being to portray the way Desdemona feels after defending her choice of marriage to her father, and then virtually straight away having to defend her fidelity to her husband, Othello. In the beginning of the play she appears to be supremely independent, and courageous as she stands up to her father with her choice of marriage, as Othello pays tribute to her “high and plenteous wit and invention”. It was Desdemona who first gave the Othello the hint to ask her to marry him, which is heard in Othello’s speech to the Duke and others “if I had a friend that lov'd her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, / And that would woo her”. She also speaks with confidence when she tells the Duke that she “did love the Moor to live with him”, and also asks whether she may go to Cyprus with him.
Midway through the play Desdemona must struggle, as she desperately tries to convince Othello that she is not too independent. It also appears that Brabantio failed to understand his own daughter. The impression that she had grown up under the guidance of a possessive type of father is given. Nothing in his household, including his daughter had ever been challenged. He seems to have failed to realise that over the years she had grown up to be a person in her own mind. Brabantio was not the type of father that Desdemona could have shares her feelings with, and had never had a close enough relationship to open her heart to him. It is clear that Brabantio is appalled with her choice in husband as he states he evidently would have preferred “the wealthy curled darlings of our nation”.
Throughout the entire play we see that Desdemona has an absolute trust in Othello, as she states, “My noble Moor/ is true of mind, and made of no such baseness/ As jealous creatures are. She continually gives Othello entire obedience as we see the word “obey” appear in the marriage service. She at all times seeks to please him and is also very sensitive, “a child to chiding”. This is why we assume she did not tell Othello about the handkerchief. She is deeply in love with him, even after “his stubbornness, his checks and frowns”. Even Iago, the man that plots against her happiness, admits “she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested”.
It is unfortunate that Desdemona has fallen in love with a man that trusts others over her, which in turn leads to the murder of her. Emilia’s question is one the audience would be asking too, “what should such a food do with so good a wife?” Emilia plays quite an important role in the play, as her comparative vulgarity emphasizes the purity of Desdemona, who fails to understand how any woman can deceive her husband, and can hardly pronounce the wore “whore”.
Desdemona’s character is strong in some ways, and quite weak in others. She also has no mother, which is used for the dramatic effect of Desdemona on her own resources in moments of stress and need. Desdemona’s estrangement from her father is quite decisive, and in this situation Desdemona has no woman upon whom she can rely and to whom she might turn for help and sympathy when her father shuts the door against her. There is no one to give her any support, this fuels our sympathy for her lonely hand and increases the pathos of her situation. Desdemona is a loving wife, but unfortunately not one with a strong character all round.
Othello murders Desdemona, as he smothers her with a pillow in a bed covered in her wedding sheets. This murder seems to be symbolic as she is now literally suffocating beneath the demands put on her fidelity. Since her opening lines Desdemona seemed capable of winning against all odds, and meeting demands that were placed upon her, until Othello takes away all her strength. Desdemona possesses a true, kind heart. She is a very trustworthy character which only increases our sympathy for her, as she doesn’t in any way deserve what has come to her. Desdemona maintains right to her death that she is “guiltless”, and the audience can only begin to imagine her fear when she awakens to find Othello standing over her with murder in his eyes.
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