Shakespeares Othello - Loving Desdemona :: Othello essays

Loving Desdemona William Shakespeare, in his tragic drama Othello, creates a most exquisite character in the person of Desdemona. Her many virtues clearly require that she be given detailed consideration by e very(prenominal) Christian member of the audience. David Bevington in William Shakespeare Four Tragedies describes the perspicaciousness of virtue within this tragic heroine We believe her Desdemona when she says that she does not even know what it means to be unfaithful the word whore is not in her vocabulary. She is vulnerable against the charges brought against her because she does not even comprehend them, cannot believe that anyone would imagine such things. Her love, both erotic and chaste, is of that transcendent wholesomeness common to several late Shakespearean heroines . . .. Her preferring Othello to her father, like Cordelias placing her duty to a husband before that to a father, is not ungrateful but natural and proper. (221) Blanche Coles in Shakespeares Fo ur Giants interprets the protagonists very meaningful four-word greeting to Desdemona which he utters upon disembarking in Cyprus Othellos four words, O, my souls joy, tell us that this beautiful Venetian girl has brought great joy, felicity, mirth to the very depths of his soul. This exquisitely beautiful love that has come to a thoughtful, earnest man is indescribably impressive. For him it is heaven on earth. And all the while, almost within girds length, stands Iago, the embodiment of evil, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. (87) In Act 1 Scene1, Iago persuades the rejected suitor of Desdemona, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemonas father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two awaken him with loud shouts about his daughters elopement with Othello. In response to Iagos vulgar descriptions of Desdemonas involvement with the general, Brabantio arises from bed and, with Roderigos help, gathers a search party to go and find Desdemona and b ring her home. The fathers attitude is that life without his Desdemona will be more than worse than before It is too true an evil gone she is And whats to come of my despised time Is nought but bitterness. (1.1) So obviously the senator has great maintain for his daughter, or at least for the comforts which she has afforded him up the beginning of the play.