social context in othello
The social backdrop of the play Othello by William Shakespeare is indeed very different to our modern social context. Othello was written during the renaissance era whereby different ethnicity's were perceived differently and women were still very restricted interns of their freedoms and rights. Women during the renaissance era had very limited rights they were not always given the same opportunities as their male counterparts, in addition to this unfair system women were considered to be the property of men usually being owned by their fathers and soon after they become owned by their husbands. A womens obedience reflected positively or negatively on a man masculinity and hence they were under constant pressure to remain loyal as it reflected badly on the man if she didn't. Despite this Venetian women during the renaissance era were well known to sleep around with different men. Gender was not the only aspect to the social context of this time period people of different cultures were also treated differently typically people from outside Venice were considered "moors" and hence inferior. The word moor typically referred to someone of African decent who was an outsider there was also many stereotypes attached to moors some of which being very sexually active, prone to jealousy and angered very easily.