Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Desdemona (/ ˌ d ɛ z d ə ˈ m oʊ n ə /) is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello , a Moorish Venetian military prodigy.
Iago then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to kill Cassio. Othello confronts a sleeping Desdemona. She denies being unfaithful, but he smothers her. Emilia arrives, and Desdemona defends her husband before dying, and Othello accuses Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The former governor Montano arrives with Gratiano and Iago.
Othello murders Desdemona, Juliet and Romeo kill themselves, and Constance Ledbelly throws a pen and a manuscript into a wastebasket. In scene 1, Constance works on her doctoral dissertation, which claims that Romeo and Juliet and Othello were originally comedies written by an unknown author and that this can be proved by decoding a manuscript ...
The first main scene shows Iago's complaining to Roderigo about not being advised of the marriage between Othello and Desdemona. Roderigo is contemplating killing himself but Iago says “Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon,” meaning Iago would rather be a baboon than ...
Othello, a General in the Venetian army, promotes a young officer, Michael Cassio, enraging Iago—the General's ensign—who expected the post himself. Outwardly loyal to Othello and his recently married wife, Desdemona, Iago proceeds to cause dissension within Othello's camp (for instance, tuning Othello's new father-in-law against him, and causing Cassio to fight another officer).
Using a handkerchief—Desdemona's misplaced token of affection—as fabricated evidence, Iago fuels Othello's growing suspicion. In a tragic culmination, Othello, consumed by jealousy, strangles Desdemona. Emilia (Antonina Maksimova), Iago's wife, reveals her husband's treachery, prompting Iago to murder her in a fit of rage.
Once Othello flies into a jealous rage, Iago tells him to hide and look on while he (Iago) talks to Cassio. Iago then leads Othello to believe that a bawdy conversation about Cassio's mistress, Bianca, is in fact about Desdemona. Mad with jealousy, Othello orders Iago to kill Cassio, promising to make him lieutenant in return.
The embraces of the figures representing Othello and Desdemona are viewed by some as scenes that move "from tender and loving to confusion and rage." [6] When the Othello were exhibited at the gallery space of a theater in Atlanta in 1985, the paintings were considered “too provocative” and were taken down the day after the exhibit had been ...