Othello- William Shakespeare

- Desdemona is physically and mentally abused when Iago manipulates her

unconventional behavior and lies about her infidelity.
- “Honest Iago,” is a form of dramatic irony as the audience is aware of his lying
ways but Othello is blind to it
- In this sense, Iago and Othello are the men within society perpetuating
ideas of female behaviour on the women in society
- Iago, social expectations and assumptions of women
- Othello, the perpetuator/men who listen to patriarchal expectations
- Desdemona’s innocence and insistence of truth narrative matches her
characterization. The structure works in conjunction with her behaviour,
demonstrating her unwillingness of conformity.
- Results in her death at the hands of her husband.
- Through
- Particularly, demonstrating the violent repercussions of women who reject
their societal expectations in a male-dominated society. Shown through
the manipulation of Desdemona’s behavior (from Iago) and the
undoubting trust (Othello) that such behavior is to be expected.

Book 2 (TRANSLATED):
The Elephant Vanishes- Haruki Murakami: Sleep
- After a terrifying experience of sleep paralysis, a woman finds she is unable to
sleep. However much to her own dismay, she is able to maintain both
consciousness and physical health.
- The woman’s external and internal resistance to conform (represented as sleep) to
societal expectations (being a wife, mother, and woman) leads to an ambiguous
end with a negative connotation. The ending alludes to the woman’s possible
death.
- Sleep illustrates the mental repercussions of avoiding, neglecting, and
disassociating with societal expectations. Multiple times (especially
towards the end) is the woman actively aware of her attitude conflicting
with what is to be expected of her (i.e. “maternal”). The ambiguous
ending- one skewed in symbolism (the men rocking the car, the car itself),
alludes to the confrontation between her identity and expectations in the
patriarchal society.

I will be discussing the global issue of internal and external conflicts of women within the
patriarchy. I will be exploring Haruki Murakami’s collection of short stories, ​The Elephant
Vanishes ​as my work in translation, and William Shakespeare’s playwright, ​Othello​ as my
second piece. Before I begin an analysis of the text as it explores my global issue, I intend to
explain what exactly it means to have an internal and external conflict. Internal values, in
relation to the global issue, represents the independent beliefs and values of a person. By
contrast, external values represent the presentation of a person- their behaviors and way of
acting. Each of the aspects of individuality can be controlled by expectations associated within
them- which is why female expectations within a male-dominated society will often clash with
their intrinsic needs.
We see this heavily explored in ​Sleep, ​a short story from Murakmai’s collection. In it, the
protagonist, an unnamed woman’s internal desires contrast with her maternal and marital
expectations through the embodied motif of sleep. Her unconscious resistance allows the
woman to embrace suppressed desires and freedoms. Desires that assist her individuality,
resulting in the clash of her external responsabilites. Not only does the main character address
her new found individualism, but acknowledges the reactions of society, with an ambiguous
“​them” i​ n, “They would only see me as a threat to their inductive world view.” This quote directly
relates to the global issue, addressing a woman’s internal relationship with other members of
society.
Overall, this passage of ​Sleep, ​is the climactic demonstration of internal desires and societal
expectations clashing with one another. Demonstrated in the text, Murakami uses repetition in
the phrase, “Something is wrong,” to enlist an uncomfortable, frantic emotion. Similarly, short
diction in the first person, (“I’m crying. All I can do is cry.”) allows the reader to empathize and
experience the panic, terror, and breakdown as the woman deals with the physical and
psychological conflict of her independent desires and social responsibilities.
Most significantly, Murakami uses imagery to directly illustrate and draw connections between
the two shadowy men rocking the protagonist car, with the two male figures dominating the
protagonist’s life. Symbolically, the way in which the men disrupt the woman in her car evokes
imagery of someone attempting to wake someone up- alluding to the idea that the men, whether
or not they are or aren’t her family, are keeping the woman back from her internal desires. the
men in the woman’s life enforce an external image upon the woman with their patriarch norms.
Despite the ambiguous ending of Murakmai’s work, the allusion to a devastating end is
something we can see in Shakespeare’s ​Othello. ​The main female character ​Desdemona​, is
killed by her own husband Othello. The couple’s once loving relationship takes an extreme turn
when Othello succumbs to the patriarchal bias influenced by his feminine and masquline
relationships. Within the passage, Othello has become overtaken by envy, accusing
Desdemona of infidelity, something she argues against with no response.​ ​This open dialogue
reveals the significant influence of how women should behave in a patriarch- the one-sided
conversation and uncaring diction of Othello reveal how blinded he has become under these
very expectations. The structure in which Shakespeare wrote this final conversation reveals how
Desdemona’s please of innocence and rejection of death characterizes her internal actions to
still defy the submissive expectations upon her.
In the context of literary devices, Shakespeare also makes reference to “honest Iago,”
drawing connections with Iago and Desdemona’s fate. The use of “honest Iago,” is prevalent
throughout the playwright as a sort of dramatic irony. Whilst Othello is unaware of the
manipulative tactics of Iago and the innocence of Desdemona, the audience is. This
juxtaposition of characters demonstrates their own relationship, acting as a foil for one another.
Despite one being truthful and the other manipulative, Iago acts in a place of power, targeting
feminie expectations and using Desdemona’s free, external and internal connectedness against
her husband. Thus, demonstrating how patriarchal expectations can cause physical conflict.
Lastly, Desdemona’s death in stage directions “smothers her,” demonstrating the violent
repercussions of women who reject their societal expectations. Significantly, the stage direction
itself, the act of smothering may comment on the way in which female expectations ​smother, t​ he
internal individuality of women. We see this in both ​Sleep ​and ​Othello, ​as the main women of
the stories unwillingly succumb to the confrontation of patriarchal expectations. `
In comparison to the two texts,

- Reference Internal: the beliefs/values of an independent person contrasted by External:

behaviour/way of acting
- Sleep, ​protagonist’s internal desires contrast with maternal and marital expectations,
though through Sleep (motif): embrace of freedom results in external clash
- Murakami uses repetition, short diction, and the first person to emphasize protagonist’s
breakdown (+ car motif/foreshadowing)
- Imagery of shadowy men alludes to male figures demanding she cave to external
pressure/responsabilites
- Othello follows a similar demise of the main female character as Othello succumbs to
patriarchal bias influenced by his feminine and masquline relationships.
- Manipulation of feminine expectations shown in content and structure of dialogue.
- Shakespeare uses dramatic irony emphasizing Iago (man with authoritative power) as a
foil for Desdemona- demonstrating the power of a man’s word against a woman’s.
- Comparison: each text uses an unconventional antagonist to portray levels of misogyny
and patriarchal figures (family and husband/general)
- Both Murakami and Shakespeare comment on the ways in which patriarchy can cause
internal and external conflict within women.
- Sleep: internal conflict between expectations and individualism while Othello: external
conflict when patriarchal figures dictate identity and behavior.