Desdemona Flashcards
In Venice
The property of her father
- “your daughter and your bags” - objectifies her
- “O thou foul thief!” “you’ve been robb’d” - possession
- “my daughter is not for thee”
A virtuous woman, deemed perfect by men
- “her delicate youth” -adjective implying innocence
- “tender, fair and happy” - tricolon - complimentary adjectives
- “a maiden never bold; / of spirit so still and quiet that her motion / blushed at herself” - metaphor
Confident and devoted wife, who sees past cultural conditioning in falling for Othello
- “she lov’d me for the dangers I had passed” - adventurous
- “my Lord” - repeated several times
- “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind / and to his honour and his valiant parts / did I my soul and fortunes consecrate” - biblical connotations - her love is pure, innocent
- does not wish to be a “moth of peace” - metaphor - strength pf character, because O allows her her voice
In Cyprus
Lively and spirited
- “Alas she has no speech”
- “Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband” - not submissive or passive, stands up for what she believes in
- O himself says she “loves company” and is “free of speech”, emphasised by her strength of character
She is principled and loyal
- “If I do vow a friendship, I’ll perform it to the last article” “thy solicitor would rather die / than give thy cause away” - promises - but is she naive in making such vows?
Passive victim of her husband’s public abuse
- “I will not stay to offend you” - 4,1
- “truly an obedient lady”
She’s innocent
- “Am I that name, Iago?” - euphemism - can’t even say the word whore
- “If any there be, heaven pardon him” - fundamental goodness, forgiveness, Perfect woman
- “I do not think there is such woman” - naive
She dies a martyr for love, a tragic heroine
- “It is my wretched fortune” - foreshadowing death
- she sings the Willow song her mother’s maid song before she died, building pathos
- “If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me in these sheets”
“Nobody; I myself. Farewell. / Commend me to my kind lord” - dies lying but devoted - Christians may think she’ll go to hell
Intro / Conclusion
never really able to break out of the control of men who are strongly possessive and can’t see her for who she truly is.
Combines the ingredients for the perfect tragic heroine. She is spirited and principled, but also innocent,
Her flaw is one way of looking at her virtue - her purity and innocence could be viewed as naivity. She is naive in imagining that women cannot be unfaithful, in arguing too strongly Cassio’s suit, and in obeying her husband when he’s clearly violently jealous.
