Shakespeares Othello - Desdemona the Wonderful Essay -- Othello essay

Othello: Desdemona the Wonderful  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   The innocent and charming personality of the wife of the general in William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello can hardly be rivaled – and yet she died the victim of a horrible murder. Let’s consider her case in this essay.    Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar in â€Å"The Engaging Qualities of Othello† comment on the virtue within the innocent wife of the Moor, and how pain came into her life:    Desdemona is warmhearted, tender, faithful, and much in love with her husband. No thought is further from her mind than the infidelity that Iago suggests to Othello. The suspense of the play increases as we watch Iago subtly poison Othello’s mind and witness Desdemona’s bewilderment, despair, and ultimate death, and this suspense is retained until the last lines when the spectator is left to imagine the tortures awaiting Iago, who is dragged off the stage to judgment.(129)    Just how innocent is the heroine? Robert Di Yanni in â€Å"Character Revealed Through Dialogue† examines the dialogue between Desdemona and Emilia, and finds that it reveals the former’s innocence:    In this dialogue we not only see and hear evidence of a radical difference of values, but we observe a striking difference of character. Desdemona’s innocence is underscored by her unwillingness to be unfaithful to her husband; her naivete, by her inability to believe in any woman’s infidelity. Emilia is willing to compromise her virtue and finds enough practical reasons to assure herself of its correctness. Her joking tone and bluntness also contrast with Desdemona’s solemnity and inability to name directly what she is referring to: adultery.(122)    Angela Pitt in â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tra... ...   Di Yanni, Robert. â€Å"Character Revealed Through Dialogue.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Literature. N. p.: Random House, 1986.    Pitt, Angela. â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare’s 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. â€Å"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.