Title: Comparing and linking texts across genres and time [Neil Bowen]

Key Ideas Main Notes

 Female characters in tragedy: Issues with agency, culpability/victims

 Shakespeare: hamartia – fatal flaw, often psychological
o often found in the protagonist
o mistake/error of judgement
o Hamartia moved away from character to society
o Who is responsible for the hamartia? To what extent?
 Massive socio-historical change
o Brecht: Shakespeare rights at a ‘fracture point’ in social history
o Shakespeare’s plays dramatize the thoughts of old vs. new/medieval vs. modern
o Received wisdom vs. new discovery (influence of technology/science)
o Aristocratic power vs. political/individualist power
 In OTHELLO:

Characters embodying inherited, aristocratic Characters in Characters embodying new thrusted

status/power: between: individualism:

Duke of Venice, Montano, Brabantio, Senators Othello, Desdemona Cassio, Iago, Bianca

 “In comedies female characters have agency, but they are victims in tragedies” (Smith)
o Absent mothers and their daughters
o Lack of maternal qualities in these texts
o Victims of an outspoken and judgemental society
 Keats: La Belle Dame sans Merci
o “a lady in the meads” – a figure outside of the social norms and boundaries
o “full beautiful – a faery’s child… her eyes were wild”
o “she looked at me as if she did love”
o “she found me roots of relish sweet”
o “in language strange she said”
o “Her elfin grot”
o “wept and sighed” – associated with feminine qualities – fragility, powerless
o “lulied me asleep”
o “in thrail”
o La Belle Dame – symbolising the society
o The knight – the tragic victim – what of?
 Knight – symbolic of powerful masculinity – noble – high in society
 Power imbalance between himself and the Belle Dame
 Language difficulty – assumption of love – conspires in his own downfall/hubris/over-
confidence in his power and status
 Male writers demonising powerful women:
o Lady Macbeth, Goneril and Regan, La Belle Dame, Lamia
 LINDA LOMAN – Salesman (Miller)
o Characterised by her maternal, wifely characteristics
o Loyal, attentative, dutiful, loving, protecting
o Voice of reason in the chaos of the novel: source of support and encouragement
o Attempts to enlighten Willy of his delusion? Or does she unknowingly support and sustain Willy’s
downfall?
o Some agency as a female tragic character, yet limited to domestic sphere – no influence beyond the
world of the Loman family
o Polar character to Ben – reason and reality vs. his deluded and idealised capitalism
o Victim to Miller’s dramatic irony – the stockings – symbol of Willy’s affair/guilt
o Counterbalanced by her seeming toughness, despite being exploited
o Source of steady wisdom and reason against the brutal capitalist ideals expressed
o Structurally downplayed and submissive – yet speaks the last lines of the play – paradox of being
‘freed’ from Willy’s life, leaving the house firstly for his funeral
Summary