Explore the Presentation of Love as Shown by Othello and Desdemona in Act 1 Scene 3. Lines 49- 295.

/ [Duke:] If you please, / Be't at her father's. / [Brabantio:] I'll not have it so. / [Othello:] Nor I. / [Desdemona:] Nor I" (I.iii.254-262). Even in time of war, Othello's and Desdemona's love holds true. They cannot stand living apart for a long period of time. Brabantio also knows that Desdemona will only show her loyalty to Othello, so he would rather have her away with Othello than home with him. Much later, Othello and Desdemona again show each other their love. Othello plans revelry for the evening in celebration of the defeat of the Turks and in celebration of his marriage to Desdemona. Once the celebration begins, Othello leaves Cassio on guard and departs to consummate his marriage: "Come, my dear love, -- / The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue; / The profit's yet to come `tween me and you" (II.iii.9-11). Othello only wishes for the best from his new marriage with Desdemona. He shows no sign of any desire for anything bad to happen. Othello's and Desdemona's marriage stays free of problems because their love for each other stays strong.

Desdemona’s family majorly influences her identity. In many cases Desdemona’s father expresses his opinions and it changes how she sees herself, and how others see her. When Desdemona falls in love with Othello, Brabantio (Desdemona’s father) is shocked. Brabantio believes that Othello has stolen and enchanted his daughter into loving him and expresses this thought to the Duke. Brabantio tells Othello “O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter? Damned as thou art,

This warning from Brabantio is the first look into the possessiveness over his daughter, Desdemona. Not uncommon for the era, Brabantio considers his daughter to be his property; her marriage to be under his control. Consequently, this is why his daughter’s betrayal in eloping with Othello is so devastating towards him.

    In William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello, the wife of the protagonist is Desdemona. She is a lovely, intelligent, wholesome and pious person. This essay will analyze her.

In Shakespeare’s time, women didn’t have as much freedom as they do now. Instead, it was a time that they ought to behave in a certain way in response to their family’s honour under a strict social hierarchy and rules. However, Shakespeare gave three women power in Othello. Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca, although they are from different social classes, are able to use their power to successfully resist male authority.

determine as to which one will win, so that is why one cannot exist without the other. However, there are some whose emotions are unbalanced, which causes them to near towards one side more than the other one ­­ and many times the side a lot of people prefer to lean on is evil. Shakespeare’s play O​thello​is set in 16th­century Venice and Cyprus. Othello, a noble black general from the Venetian army has secretly married Desdemona, daughter of Venice senator Brabantio. Othello chooses inexperienced Cassio to be his lieutenant, while he decides to give the ensign position to Iago, a malicious but very experienced man who, with his stealth and knavery, will ultimately ruin almost everyone’s life since for a long time, he was desiring the position of lieutenant just like Cassio. At the end of the play, Othello, Desdemona, Iago’s wife Emilia, and his sidekick Roderigo die due to his revenge against Cassio, for obtaining the position he wanted and Othello, for being the man who he hates the most. The play ends with Iago being told that he will be punished and tortured for his actions. However, despite the fact that Iago is punished at the end of the play for doing all of the malicious things he did, he still manages to wear down Othello’s relationship with Desdemona, get Cassio demoted from his lieutenancy, and cause Othello to show his cowardness by

The relationship between Desdemona and Othello in the play ‘Othello’ is used to express and observe the way that humans are selfish by nature. Although both Desdemona and Othello do sincerely love each other, both of them find great personal gain in their marriage, which clearly contributes to their feelings for one another. Othello, who is a black leader in an overwhelmingly white, Christian society, has come from a troubled and difficult background, being “sold to slavery” and working in the military all his life. In finding a good Christian wife in Desdemona, he finds someone to always support him in hard times, as evidenced in his summary of their romance, “she loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them”. This quote suggests that their love is more self-serving than he lets on; Desdemona loves Othello for the adventures he has been on and the stories he tells, and Othello loves Desdemona because she listens and devotes herself to what he has to say. When Desdemona gets a chance to explain their relationship herself, she is particularly proud of the fact that she “did love the Moor to live with him; my downright violence and storms of fortunes may trumpet to the world”. We note that she mentions her ‘violence’, the way she deliberately disobeyed her father and fled his company to secretly marry a man who is not one of her father’s approved suitors. This furthers the idea that Desdemona seems to be in love with Othello because of the adventures he has been on, and the excitement and liberty of her being with such a man; she is seeking her own freedom in a misogynistic society by defying her father to marry Othello. Their relationship is

Shakespeare mocks society’s extreme measures by suggesting death as the sole option for Othello when he fails to understand that Desdemona may not fit female stereotypes. Without the ability to label her, Othello fails to “assert Desdemona’s chastity and corruptibility simultaneously” and “murders Desdemona to redeem her from degradation” (Neely). The characters, like many people, struggle to alter views that have been so firmly pressed into their minds. In this way, Shakespeare negatively comments on humans’ inabilities to see beyond what society tells them and to comprehend truths unique to a specific person rather than his gender roles. Shakespeare uses the characters Desdemona and Othello to display how people become accustomed to the gender identities that society defines for them. Therefore, both characters, as depicted by their deaths, fail to understand each other personally as individuals instead of as the stereotypical man or woman that is being presented.

Once that Brabantio has located Othello, the father presses charges publicly in order to have Desdemona returned:

A brief moment later when Brabantio returns to his bedroom window and shouts out in despair, “It is too true evil. Gone she is, and what’s to come of my despiséd time is naught but bitterness” (1.1.178-180). Iago states that Othello has abducted and is raping Desdemona, “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe” (1.1.97-98). Iago continues to spew racial slurs about Othello as he further explains the horrid acts that begin to implant themselves in Brabantio’s mind. “Your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs” (1.1.129-130). Iago forces these horrendous images into Brabantio’s head because Iago knew it would play off Brabantio’s racist side. Brabantio, remaining furious, gathers a group to hunt and potentially kill Othello. “At every house I’ll call. I may command at most. ––Get weapons, ho! And raise some special officer of night” (1.1.203-205). Once Brabantio and others find Othello, Brabantio orders all swords to be drawn on Othello. “Down with him, thief” (1.2.73-74). Brabantio immediately begins to interrogate Othello, “O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter? (1.2.80-81). Brabantio then comes to the conclusion that Othello “has enchanted her” (1.2.83) through black magic. In Brabantio’s mind, his pure daughter would never be with a black man. Brabantio continues on and states

In that part of the scene, Brabantio is willing to arrest Othello and has come to do so with a mob because he believes that he is doing what is best for Desdemona (which is to not be married to Othello). In a real situation like that, the father?s actions probably wouldn?t be as extreme as Brabantio?s were. All three of these examples prove that the emotion of love has far greater control over one?s actions in the play than in real life.

However strong the emotional attitude of prejudices may be in Othello, Love is the most powerful emotion and ironically the emotion that leads to the most vulnerability. Loves of all kinds are tested in the tragedy and ultimately all fail to rectify the horrible situation. Marital love for Othello and Desdemona serve as both a heaven and a hell on earth. As Othello portrays by saying,

    The meaningful term “love” can be applied to differing relationships in Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello. In this essay let us examine under a microscope the “love” that we find throughout the play.

n Shakespeare's play Othello many issues are undertaken and explored. The three women play a vital role in this. Only one of the women in this play survives. All the women have no separate identity within the play; all three are married or associated with a male character. Bianca is the mistress of Cassio, Emilia is married to Iago and Desdemona is married with Othello. According to the time that the play was written in and the general hierarchy within Venetian society men hold all the power and women are considered to be of low intellect. Yet it is the women that speak the most sense throughout the play and it is also the women that are able to trust other characters in the play. Each woman represents a different social level, Desdemona

    Othello’s speech to Brabantio and the Duke in Act 1, Scene 3 is of major importance in describing Othello’s personality. This long speech, found in lines 149 to 196, shows Othello for the first time as a person with depth and less as a soldier. This speech is important to the book as a whole because it is a testimony to the strength of the love between Othello and Desdemona, which will later play a major role in the plot. It is also one of the first times that we see Othello trying to influence his audience with his words. The speech given by Othello is intended to convince Brabantio that Desdemona is with him willfully, and not by “spells and medicines bought of montebanks” (line 74).