Speaking Notes

In the Roaring Girl, Moll has no real ties to the society she interacts with, which allow her to remain morally better than the corrupt society which judges her. Due to this separation she is untouched by the behaviour and remains the “other”.

Within Othello, Othello is identified as the “other” of the society, as a morally strong man, and a great warrior. However unlike Moll, Othello injects himself into the societal structure through the elopement with Desdemona. Marriage then becomes a weapon through which characters like Iago and Desdemona use to manipulate and transform him into the “other” that their society has created: which is a dark and savage man.

I will explain how he is injected into the society in marriage:

            Upon finding out that his daughter has escaped from him to marry, Barbantio is furious and goes to the Venetian Court for justice. After explaining his case the Duke and the Senators, they tell him the following:

“…the bloody book of law/ You shall yourself read in the bitter letter/ After your own sense –yea, though our proper son/ Stood in your action.” [I.iii.69-72]

Which in essence allows Barbantio to punish the one who stole his daughter in anyway he sees fit. Although after finding out that it was Othello that has married Desdemona the offer is revoked by the senate and the marriage is accepted, since the state needs him for the impending war in Cyprus. Not only is the offence forgiven, but Barbantio is somewhat reprimanded for his behaviour.

            “And, noble signor,/ If virtue no delighted beauty lack,/ Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.” [I.iii.290-292]

Once married Othello is manipulated by two people, the first obviously Iago and the second is less obvious Desdemona.

Desdemona

-she uses her position as the general’s wife to affect matters of state. For example when Cassio is removed of his military position, she swears to him that she will do all in her power to affect Othello’s judgement. She says in [III.iii. 19-28] that she will plead his case to Othello and “…talk him out of patience;/ His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift; / I’ll intermingle every thing he does with Cassio’s suit.” [III. Iii. 23-26]

This interjection into the societal masculine sphere is one of the causes for her death in the end. Although that is not the only time she steps beyond her bounds as woman; During the meeting with the Venetian court in Act 1, she is even so bold as to ask to accompany her new husband to Cyprus, thought it maybe dangerous. This unusual request is accepted and she is allowed to join her husband. This was not an everyday practice for the soldiers of war since they would not be able to battle as well if they were preoccupied by family matters.

-Another reason she is murdered in the end is to correct the injustice of betraying her father when she eloped with Othello. Once she has died Order is restored.

Iago (also manipulates Othello)

-Not only does he feel cheated out of the job of lieutenant by Othello and Cassio but he hints at times that he believes Othello has slept with his wife. These two factors drive his hate and the revenge on the Moor.

-He uses marriage and its trust of faithfulness to manipulate Othello. The murderous plot is kindled through unjust rumours that Cassio has been sleeping with Desdemona. Iago states:

“Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio./ Wear your eyes thus, not jealous nor secure./ I would not have your free and noble nature,/ Out of self-bounty, be abused.” [III.iii. 212-215]

Towards the 4^th act, Iago tortures Othello with such false accusations that Othello falls ill into a seizure due to the anger he feels for being cheated. Nurturing the seed of jealously Iago speaks the following words while the Moor is in the trances:

“Work on,/ My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,/ And many worthy and chaste dames even thus, all guiltless, meet reproach.”[IV.i.42-45]

With these words spoken Othello is fully transformed into the savage that Igao has defined him as in the beginning of the play.

Othello who was once seen as a Great warrior and a morally strong man becomes corrupted by the society he trusts so much. In the Transformation Othello losses his otherness and becomes comparable to Iago, the member in the society he trusts the most.

Lodovico states the following upon seeing the new Othello-

“Is this the nature/ Whom passion could not shake? Whose solid virtue/ The shot of accident nor dart of chance/ Could neither graze nor pierce?” [IV.i.258-261]

Othello even recognizes that he has lost his old self when he says:

“Oh, now, forever/ Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!”[III. Iii. 364-365]

When he is in the final stages of transformation, he looks to Iago and says “Thou teachest me”[V.i.34]. It is through this plea that Othello becomes what the society had identified him as a violent dark man.

Through his education with Iago, he also accepts Iago’s views of what marriage is and comes to regret his marriage. He abandon’s all his views of how honest and true Desdemona is (which he stated at the beginning of the play), for Iago’s negative view of women; which states that no woman can be trustworthy.

“Oh, curse of Marriage,/ That we can call these delicate creatures ours/ and not their appetites”[III.iii.285-286] Othello even states “Why did I marry?” [III.iii.259] showing his regret for his interaction with the society which corrupts him.

In conclusion, Othello who was seen as an other at the beginning of the play is injected into the society through marriage and is corrupted by its members. Paniced and turned savage Othello then looks to escape from its grips and chooses to murder his wife in order to recover his otherness.

It’s My Turn!

Tomorrow I’m going to be presenting on the play so I don’t want to give it all away, but I will be discussing how Marriage made Othello (the “other”) become part of, and then corrupted by, the society he has been injected into through the act. I really hope that makes sense… LOL. But anyways it will all be explained tomorrow, see you all in class.

The blog containing my presentation will be posted tomorrow after class.

-Matt

I found the Orgel article: “The Performance of Desire” to offer much more interesting in its material. I found it very interesting the method in which he sets up his discussion of women in Renaissance England. I didn’t know that it was only in England that women where not allow to be actresses; I assumed, as many do, that what is considered normative in one part of Europe is the same case for the remainder. I also enjoyed the tidbit given by Orgel that the theatre audience was made up of mostly women and it is they who decided what popular theatre is. In the view of this information, I think it is very interesting that the women that were excluded from the acting “club” have actually more power, than if they had been included.

I found myself baffled and yet very amused by the discussion of genitals; I think I understand it as both sexes originate from the female, as such women should be the one as with authority. Since they are the original and the male sex is the “other”, it is men who should be secondary and not women. Although I found it EXTREMELY HILARIOUS the little anecdote: “The most famous and recent, a shepherd named Germain Garnier, had been a women named Marie until the age of fifteen, at which time, as she was chasing her pigs, her genitals turned inside out, transforming her from female to male.” Are you kidding me? Thank god Orgel put in the second part about Montaigne’s disbelief of this. I think if he would have just left it at that I would have probably stopped reading, due to absurdities.

-Matt

It’s amazing, I read this play my second year in Dr. Brace’s class (Drama in the City), and for some reason it seemed totally brand new. Secondly, I would like to say I did enjoy this play simply for its opposition of characters. First, you have Moll who is rumoured to be an immoral being, yet in the play she acts morally. Then you have everyone else who looks at Moll supposing they are better than her, and yet they are portrayed worse than her. What a weird and smart twist! Moll does nothing but help those who are the innocent in the play, while the others are trying to get what they want out of situations. So the question is… what are the authors trying to do through this play? Are they making a commentary on society? Or are they stating the old cliché “a book can’t be judged by its cover”. Or is this simply an incidental issue in which both authors reach accidentally? (which I highly doubt…but who knows!)

It is also interesting Molls response to when she will marry: “When you shall hear/ gallants void from sergeants’ fear,/Honesty and truth unslandered,/ Women manned but never pandered…[and so on]” Act 5.2 ll. 223-230. What other response could one ask for? It would have been odd if she said that she would marry because it would totally be out of character. It is important that she remains an outsider to the group, because this way she is untainted by their behaviour. If she were to marry then she would run the risk of becoming like those that surround her in the play; simply put immoral.

Sadly I don’t want to say too much because I have a question to ask tomorrow and I don’t want to give it away.

-Matt

Before I start, I think something needs to be said about the enormous talent of Ben Jonson, creating such crazy and fun characters is quite the task; specifically in this play there are Morose & Mute and La Foole, who are my favourites. La Foole is all together seen as quite funny though Jonson presents him as a very arrogant man. He constantly refers to his wealth and excess which in most instances it can be seen as annoying, but Jonson gives him the curse of often being misunderstood. By having this flaw La Foole is not seen as above the other character’s stations but rather it lowers him down to the same level as the others.

Morose and Mute are by far my favourites in this play; Morose who is absolutely neurotic about noise that he has his servants (ie. Mute) walk around in socks and communicate without words to spare him to pain of noise. This ridiculous behaviour leads him to expect silence from a wife, since others adjust themselves to his wishes. It is interesting that he finds the ideal wife in Epicene, who is a boy dressed as a woman. Marriage is used as a tool for revenge by Morose, he wishes to marry any silent woman regardless of class, in order to cheat his nephew out of inheritance.  

In reference to another marriage, it is also interesting the method in which Mrs. Otter’s arrangement has (accepted) gender roles mixed. Mrs. Otter was married for her wealth and Tom (her husband) looks to her in order to be provided for, he even receives an allowance. As is viewed in other plays it is normally the other way around.

Another method that his play inverts the norms of marriage, is the ways that money is exchanged during a divorce as apposed to during a marriage. Normally there is a dowry exchanged during a marriage but Jonson inverts it for Dauphine to receive money (ie. his inheritance he was cheated from) once Morose wishes to leave his wife.

Overall this was a really good play; Jonson made it to the top of the most enjoyable reading of this term, a lot like he did last year with Bartholomew Fair.

-Matt

I, like a few others in the class, have already read this last year, but I seem to have forgotten most of it. Once the events unfolded I did remember reading it, but I could not, for the life of me, move past that point. Although now that I have read it a second time I really hope that I don’t lose it again because I liked it.

What I will focus on for this blog is: why is it that Mariam dies and Salome lives at the end? And what does this mean?

At first I found it a very hard question to wrap my mind around. Mariam, being presented as a good and chaste wife, is what society expects of her; while Salome is presented as this duplicitous and cunning woman, and is spared. I think that this is due to the fact, that when Herod returns Mariam stands up for herself, and no longer wants to be the good wife to Herod, and wishes to gain freedom from him. This is the really something that would need to be corrected in the society of the day, and as such she must die in the play. But Salome (upon looking deeply into her character) is smart in her rebellion against the male-ruled society. She assumes power over others and manipulates them in order to get what she wants. This attitude seems to be rewarded in the play. She reminds me, in many ways, of Alice (in the Arden of Faversham), but Alice is executed in the end, to right the wrongs that took place in the play, but here Salome is not. Perhaps Cary is giving a message that one needs to work the system (ie. be like a man) to benefit from it, but to simply object or stand up against it and the norms of society will get you killed.

** As a side note this play served a dual purpose for me since on Monday I have a test in one of my biblical studies classes. Hooray for killing two birds with one stone! (though I am apposed to the killing of birds).

This is possibly the most unusual play I have read to date and I’m not quite sure how well this play works into our seminar on marriage. Though marriage plays a part in the play, it is not its main focus, rather its focus is on the many people who want Arden dead for their own benefit.

ie:

-Alice wants Arden dead so she can pursue her relations with Mosby

-Mosby wants him dead for Arden’s wealth

-Greene wants him dead so he can gain back his lost land

-Michael and Clarke want him dead to have Susan

-Black Will and Shakebag want him dead for money

This play does discuss the themes of women being used as commodities (in the case of Susan), and woman in positions of power (like Alice). Alice is an interesting character, even though she is very adamant about having her husband dead, she still assumes the personality of a “good wife”. This is predominant almost everywhere, but an example is in the scene when she appears to her husband while arm-in-arm with Mosby. When the murder plot fails, she states that is was only done in jest, when it was actually meant to enrage him.

There were a few elements that I found odd about the play though. First was the separation of the play into scenes without acts. Also at the beginning of each scene we there were no descriptions of the setting, they just begin and as a reader you have to decipher where you are (ie. either with Alice and Mosby, with Arden, or somewhere between both), eventually it became easy to decipher.  

Another item that I found unusual was the 2 times in the text when Black Will’s and Shakebag’s lines where put into block text as apposed to poetic format. When it first appeared (II:19) I thought it was because both men were criminals and it was used as a method of showing their outcast position compared to others, but then it disappeared, so did my theory. As I chalked it up to a typo in my edition it appeared once again (XVI:12) I don’t know why this is like this and after talking to Stevie I still don’t know.

The final item that I found unusual was the many attempts and failures of the murder of Arden. In my experience in reading Elizabethan plays, normally when someone is to be murdered it only takes one try (two if you wanted to show troubles in his murder). But this play did it too many times! At first it was dramatic, then it became comical, and then it was just sad (I was almost happy for Arden to be killed so these poor people can move one with their lives).

I have chosen to solely respond on this article because I found it to be the most interesting and most dense with tidbits. From my understanding of the text it seems that most (if not all) conduct books written during this period gain their authority from two sources: the King and the Church. For the most part it seems that the household is to be treated as a kingdom, within it the Father is the King and all other members of the family unit (wife, children, and servants) are sequentially lower in status and authority. Curiously the servants are included within the family –I would have thought otherwise– they were treated much like the children; they were to be taught good manners, attend church, and had their faults “corrected”.

Within the article there seemed to be many different views on how the husbands should maintain order within his home. When it comes to discipline there seems to be three basic methods mentioned. (1) Actual physical abuse; this could be done either by the husband or by other hands: ‘it is fitter for an husband to refer the matter to a public matter to a public magistrate… and not do it with his own hands’. (2) No physical abuse; no violent hand should be raise towards a wife because she is you’re your equal (I would be very interested to see how popular this choice would have been for the 16^th and 17^th century). (3) Somewhere in the middle; there is mention of one method that seems to offer a method of no actual violence being committed and yet still malicious in its nature.

“…a husband should be kind and gentle to his wife, to gradually ‘steal away her private will, and appetite, so that of two bodies there may be made only one heart.’” I’m not quite sure if this was the intention of the writer to have an undertone of harshness, but it is the word “steal” that gives me problems. Although you do see this as the preferred method of taming of Kate by Petruchio (Taming of the Shrew), and according to the play this method seemed to be quite successful. 

**As a side note, I thought it very interesting how there was a mention of neighbours being responsible for the safety of the husband or wife during a quarrel within their home. If he is caught not maintaining the peace he could be subject to public humiliation. (I have this funny picture in my head of a neighbour peeping into a window during a fight and making sure it doesn’t get out of hand… HAHAHAHA!)

There are many themes worthy of discussion when it comes to this play. One of which is the repeated motif of a play within a play. This theme is often used in some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries: i.e. the structure in Francis Beaumont’s “The Knight of the Burning Pestle”, and to a lesser extent the puppet-show in Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair”. From the very beginning of Shakespeare’s play we are brought into the format of Beaumont’s play, when Sly, the Page, and the Lord all watch the actual play take place. Unlike the Citizen and his wife who often add their input into the play in “The Knight of the Burning Pestle”, the characters of Sly and the Page are almost silent only speaking once during the play. They only speak at the end of Act I Scene I, when the Page (as the wife) reminds Sly to stay awake during the play. There are other moments within the play where we are given almost a third level, where actors on stage act like the audience watching events unfold. In Act I, Scene I, around line 48, Lucentio and Tranio watch the introduction of Bianca’s love triangle and the presentation of the shrew. During this scene there are no interruptions to the development of the conversation, other than a few asides by the two men. The third level of play is not only present here but also in Act V, Scene I, Line 50; when the real Vincentio arrives into the story. At this moment Petruchio states: “Prithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of this controversy”. This allows Katherine and Petruchio to act like the audience and observe the unfoldings.

Of Course this is only one the many theme strings within the tightly woven play. There is also plenty of material for discussion on:

-Women as Property                       

-Treatment of Women

-Honour in Lineage or the Issue of Class

-Disguising & Lying

-Monetary & Property Negotiations

-Examination of who is Mad & who is a Shrew