Othello and Desdemona

In Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello and Desdemona’s marriage was doomed from the start. They did not start well; their marriage was controversial because of their race and Othello’s failure to follow proper etiquette while he was courting her. However these issues could have been overcome with time. The biggest problem is Othello’s attitude to Desdemona. Othello’s model of Desdemona prevents him from considering her a person. He thinks of her instead as superior to himself in every way, to the point that she is a god. Her race, beauty, and status make her godly in his mind. She becomes untouchable in Othello’s mind, and he begins to distance himself from her. Because Othello thinks of Desdemona as “Alabaster”(5.2.5) he will never consider her capable of responding to his love.

Because Othello is at his wit’s end when he refers to her as “Alabaster”, he is speaking out of his heart. When Othello receives a letter from Venice informing him that he is to return home and leave Casio in command of Cyprus he is greatly enraged. As a result he loses his grip on sanity and begins to speak in less cohesive manner. Take the line, “Pish! Noses, ears, and lips. Isn’t Possible? Confess! Handkerchief! O devil!”(4.1.42) contains none of Othello’s former eloquence. He begins to speak with word association, rather than in complete sentences. The word “confess!” brings up the word “Handkerchief!”, and “devil!”. Because Desdemona, the handkerchief, and the sense of maliciousness were on his mind so much, he begins to express with abstract words and ideas instead of sentences. Although this makes his lines harder to read, they show us what he is constantly thinking of. Instead of clear and concise lines, they are a torrent of his true feelings. In the...

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... Because of his high view of her, he creates a complex of his own insignificance. From his point of view, Desdemona is unable to love him because she is too elemental to have emotion.

Othello has, put simply, encased Desdemona in alabaster. He has formed an opinion of her from which she is unable to break free. Because he has so strongly locked her into this state of mind he is unable to think of him in any other way. She is so high up on the pedestal that he puts her on that he is unable to see who she truly is. This is Othello’s failing. By making her too powerful, too divine, any minor fault is a glaring defect to her immaculate surface. Then at the first flaw, she becomes low and nothing, and he needs to return her to her former glory. He must “Quench thee… [and] again they former light restore”(5.2.9). He fails to see her love through her alabaster covering.