Verbal Irony In Shakespeare's Othello

In general, irony is the literary technique that involves differences between appearance and reality, expectation and result, or meaning and intention (Stone English Learning Lab). There are three major types of irony: verbal, dramatic, and situational. Verbal irony uses words to suggest the opposite of what is meant. In dramatic irony, there is a contradiction between what a character says or thinks and what the audience knows to be true. Situational irony refers to events that occur which contradict the expectations of the characters, audience, or readers. In Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice, verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony are used to propel the action forward and to intensify the drama as it proceeds.
In the …show more content…
There is more than just one literary theory that can be used for Othello, the Moor of Venice. One of the most common critical lens used is the feminist criticism, used from the 1960’s and is still being used today. Feminist criticism has to do with "...the ways in which literature reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson). This theory looks at how aspects of our culture are almost completely male dominated and "...this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women" (Richter 1346). Feminist criticism is also concerned with the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary point of …show more content…
A feminist analysis of the play Othello allows us to judge the different social values and status of women in the Elizabethan society. According to Elizabethan or Shakespeare's society, women were expected to be silent and obedient to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and all men in general. A perfect example can be found at the end of the play when Emilia is revealing Iago’s plot. When Iago says to his wife Emilia “What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home” (5.2.226). Emilia justifiably responds “Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak: 'Tis proper I obey him, but not now. Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home” (5.2). Clearly, this shows that women were taught to be obedient to their husbands. Today, feminists argue that it is not natural for women to be feminine, that history has tried to make it seem as though its social expectations of women is a part of the laws of nature. The women of Othello, however, are pre-Feminism, and seem to only compound the expectations of what it is to be a woman through their own

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