critics - desdemona Flashcards
jameson
‘gentleness in excess’
‘the source of the pathos throughout-of that pathos which at once softens and deepens the tragic effect-lies in the character of desdemona’
‘desdemona has ‘an absence of intellectual power’ and an ‘absence of energy of will’
a.c bradley
‘pure as a saint, innocent as a child’
‘helpless passive’
‘dumb creature’
‘tortured without cause’
newman
‘desdemona’s love for othello is a threat to Venice’
‘desdemona’s decision to marry a black man is portrayed as heroic rather than demonic’
suffers ‘the conventional fate designed to desiring women’
loomba
‘desdemona becomes an outsider in the play as she is rejected by her husband and society for perceived actions’
vanita
‘othello’s love of desdemona is the love of possession. she is a prize, a spoil of war’
‘one of the questions that has the most vexed critical commentary on othello is that of responsibility for desdemona’s death.
‘trapped in the predicament of being a woman’
jardine
‘desdemona proves to be too independent, too knowing as a result due to her waywardness she is punished by patriarchy’
‘desdemona’s death is a lesson in what happens when the male hierarchy is disobeyed’
‘stereotype of female passivity’
honnigman
‘desdemona’s strength partly depends on othello’s love, only when he rejects her handkerchief is her self-confidence checked. thereafter, she may seem passive’
mendes
‘active participant, a strong female character’
‘desdemona made a very specific decision to marry this man … that makes her in some ways extremely strong’
terry
‘desdemona is strong, not weak, and she is a tragic figure, not just an innocent girl who is killed’
french
‘desdemona too readily accepts the masculine nature of society and is ‘self-denying in the extreme’ when she dies’
modern feminists
‘hideous embodiment of the downtrodden woman’
john adams
‘desdemona ‘not only violated her duties to her father, her family, her sex, and her country, but she makes the first advances.’
bonnard
‘rebellious child’
