Alexandra Kim
AP English IV
Emilia
Methods of Characterization
What Character Says:
“I will be hanged if some eternal villain, some busy and
insinuating rogue, some cogging, cozening slave, to get
some office, have not devised this slander.” (4.2.153-
156)
“Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak. ‘Tis
proper I obey him, but not now, Perchance, Iago, I will
ne’er go home.” (5.2.232-234)
“Let husbands know their wives have sense like them.
They see, and smell, and have their palates both for
sweet and sour as husbands have.” (4.3.104-108)
Actions:
“I’ll have the work ta’en out and give ‘t Iago. What he
will do with it Heaven knows, not I. I nothing but to
please his fantasy.” (3.3. 340-343)
“If he [Iago] say so, may his pernicious soul rot half a
grain a day! He lies to th’ heart! She was too fond of her
most filthy bargain!” (5.2.188-189)
Inner Thoughts and Feelings:
“Let husbands know their wives have sense like them.
They see, and smell, and have their palates both for
sweet and sour as husbands have.” (4.3.104-108)
Stock and Static Characters:
Emilia, Cassio, Bianca, Desdemona
Sympathy of the Reader
Looking back at Emilia had to say, she seems to be a
very honorable women. A woman that stands up for her
beliefs and is passionate against injustice. She is
admired by the reader, and although a minor character,
she seems to be of the utmost upright character. She is
a strong female character that is willing to defy her
husband to stand up for what is right, the reader can’t
help liking her.
These two actions differ completely. In the first Emilia
shows a blind act of faith towards her husband doing a
harmlessly bad thing and giving her husband
Desdemona’s handkerchief. This action shows ignorance
on Emilia’s part and although she may be a good
woman, the reader sees her as ignorant.
In her second action, exposing her husband, she
changes from blind devotion to turning her back on her
husband. The reader automatically weighs more respect
on Emilia and her role turns out to be much more
important than previously anticipated.
In the examples Emilia lists of husbands doing injustice
to their wives it is obvious that she had faced them
herself from Iago. The reader has sympathy on Emilia
knowing the villainy that Iago embodies; being his wife
must be terrible. She places herself in an underdog
position, fighting for the rights of wives through her
little rant. Her character is likeable, honest and
strongheaded though ignorant in some ways, she
cannot be blamed for any of the wrong that takes place.
She definitely did not deserve her ending fate. Meeting
her first act of open defiance to her husband with death
by her husband.
 Although Othello and his transformation from noble to angry and jealous is the main
focus for the play there is an underlying theme presented in the women. There are only three
women characters in the play, Emilia, Bianca and Desdemona. Emilia is older than Desdemona
and cynical about marriage itself, this opinion deriving from the fact that her marriage with Iago
is not satisfactory. Emilia though honest and righteous admits to the fact that a woman
cheating on her husband is justified if the husband does her wrong. This belief allows her to
turn against her husband when she finds that he has done wrong. Bianca is a courtesan, a
“whore”, in love with Cassio, she is innocent in her love though disrespected by characters in
the play such as Cassio and Emilia. By making one of the three women a whore, Shakespeare
shows that Othello sees no difference between Desdemona and an actual whore after he
suspects her of infidelity. The last of the three women, Desdemona, is the most pure and
innocent, as she sees cheating on her husband unfathomable and obeys and respects her
husband. Despite this, she is the one charged as a whore and verbally and physically abused by
her husband, although she may be the best “wife” out of the three. Shakespeare uses this set
up of different woman characters to emphasize the point that Othello’s jealousy and rage was
so blind that he accused Desdemona the most innocent character of a most vile crime.
Cassio is a foil to Iago, who is genuinely honorable and loyal as Iago seems to be on the outside.
Shakespeare also uses Cassio to continue the theme of men disregarding or respecting women. Cassio
mocks and disrespects Bianca although he knows she is hopelessly in love with him, he carries on a male
chauvinistic view of women, admiring them for their beauty but not respecting them for their persons.
Othello looks down on his wife disregarding her pleas of innocence and not bothering to ask her for her
side of the story, thinking her inferior and automatically dishonest. Iago disrespects his wife as well;
ungrateful for her gift of Desdemona’s handkerchief, Shakespeare uses this theme of disrespecting
women to show in the end a woman, Emilia, plays the pivotal role of exposing the truth.