Shakespeares Othello - Pitied Desdemona Essay -- Othello essays

Othello and Pitied Desdemona William Shakespeares tragic drama Othello sees the destruction of two truly beautiful people because of a sinister intervention by a third. The most beautiful of all is the lovely and irreproachable Desdemona. Let us in this essay consider her character. In her book, Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard Mack comments on the heroines final song Desdemona, preparing for bed on the night that get out be her last, remembers her mothers maid called Barbary She was in love, and he she loved proved mad And did forsake her. She had a song of Willow An old affair twas but it expressed her fortune, And she died singing it. That song to-night Will not go from my mind. (4.3.25) Here time present, in which Desdemona speaks and sings, and time future, in which we know she (like Barbary) is to die from an infrangible fidelity to her intuition of what love is and means, recede even as we watch into a lost time past, when Desdemona had a mother and all loves agonies and complexities could be comprehended in a song. (132) 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. at 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 bring her home. Once that Brabantio has located Othello, the father presses charges publicly in order to have Desdemona returned ... ...om Shakespeare The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p. n.p., 1970. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Pitt, Angela. Women in Shakespeares Tragedies. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Re print from Shakespeares Women. N.p. n.p., 1981. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. The engaging Qualities of Othello. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.