Until recently, men have been the leaders and the responsible figures in society, and women have been portrayed as inferior and reliant upon men. This patriarchal structure has forced women to become repressed and helpless, not only in the eyes of men and society. The question of gender is even more pronounced in Othello than in most other tragedies because male sexuality is, by virtue of the hero's skin colour, as much as an issue as female sexuality.

Shakespeare adapted Othello from Giovanni Battista Giraldi's (surnamed Cinthio) "Gli Hecatommithi," a collection of tales published in Venice in 1565. The focus of Cinthio's story is that one should look for marriage partners from the same ethnic and...