Desdemona Is A Dynamic Character In Shakespeare's Othello

“Ay, let her rot, and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone. I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature! She might lie byan emperor's side and command him tasks” (Shakespeare). Othello, the main character in Othello by William Shakespeare, was deceived by Iago to believe his wife, Desdemona, was cheating on him. He was different from the start. He was a Moor, therefore emotionally dealing with different scenarios as well as his physical attributes. Desdemona fell in love with him because how he dealt with adversity and his individualism. Even so, with many doubts on Iago’s accusation of Desdemona, he eventually caved in and believed his wife was cheating. Othello’s doubt with himself and his wife was prominent throughout the play. He was very static, and had huge effects on the characters around him.

Othello’s ethics caused great casualties throughout the play, and demonstrates his immature behavior.

According to Piotr Sadowski, He agrees that his ethics are inappropriate throughout the play as well. Stating, “Othello's insistence on hearing the "truth" is a function of his static character here: his unbending honesty will not permit any doubt or uncertainty about the important principles he believes in, and his moral inflexibility” (Sadowski). While being a previous slave, and having personal doubts about himself, his ways of correcting his problems are ineffective and unproductive. Othello is inflexible with his emotions and logic behind his actions. When Iago first planted the seed of doubt into Othello’s mind, telling Othello specifically not to over-analyze his deceitful comments about Desdemona, it was a doubt that wouldn’t escape his mind. Another example from the play was when Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, mentions how since seeing a man in the first place, that she will eventually lie to

Othello.
The motivation for Othello’s actions and the thought processes of his actions were static and were undeveloped. Othello’s motive was to kill Desdemona not only due to his broken heart, but to prevent her from cheating on any other man. While killing her would ultimately erase the possibility of her cheating, it doesn’t consider her side of the story nor anything other than seeing Cassio with Desdemona’s handkerchief. The article entails, “The effect of a strong cultural norm is thus compounded with a strong genetic disposition in men, creating as a result a behavioral pattern, dramatized in Othello and in The Winter's Tale, involving a husband's powerful negative emotions toward the alleged adulteress and his murderous aggression sanctioned by severe law and custom. In other words, because of the intensity of the underlying innate motivation, the murderous passion that often accompanies sexual jealousy is easily provoked in a traditional society in otherwise decent and noble men such as Othello or Leontes, whose negative emotions are not mitigated but actually enhanced by social sanction” (Sadowski). This idea is prominent throughout the play in several instances. For example, Iago’s sexist jokes and how he cared more about a job position than his own wife illustrates the normality of misogyny.
Othello was referred to as many things within the play, including the constant reminders of his darker skin complexion and his non-relation to the customs of their culture. The article was explained, “When Othello appears in person for the first time he is accompanied by Iago, whose hatred of his master has already been impressed on us in the preceding scene, both in Iago's diatribes before Roderigo and even more forcefully in the grossly offensive racial slurs shouted at night before Brabantio's house” (Sadowski). These emotional barriers are what made Othello doubt Desdemona’s love for him as well. The constant reminder that he is different and how he was of a different culture made him uneasy on why Desdemona loved him in the first place. Unlike making the play about a tough general with no emotion, Shakespeare wrote Othello to be a man who has several issues going on at once and even epileptic fits over his emotions. Shakespeare showed Othello as being a human being and having basic human emotions like love, jealousy, and anger.
Ultimately, the article by Piotr Sadowski was accurate in his evaluation of Othello being a static character throughout the play. Othello didn’t show any personal development or character development. He was solely consumed with an issue at hand and didn’t take any steps to make a better situation as a whole. The article clearly sees his ineffective actions, his uneasy adjustment into a different society, and how others led him to staying at a non-developmental stage.