Desdemona is the beautiful heroine of the tragedy, Othello by William Shakespeare. She is an embodiment of virtue, purity, gentleness, sympathy, and kind-heartedness. She is indeed, far from perfect and is not without Faults, but she wins the profound admiration and deep sympathy of the reader and fascinates him with her various qualities and graces. Desdemona is the only daughter of Brabantio, a senator. She is young, tender of age, never bold, and extremely shy. Here Desdemona symbolizes goodness. She is certainly one of the greatest heroines of the playwright. According to Bradley, "Desdemona is the sweetest and most pathetic of Shakespeare's women." an innocent and gullible character.
Desdemona is generally regarded as a simple foolish young girl. She falls in love with a man older than herself. She is thought of as a weak-willed creature deceived by the dazzling brilliance of Othello's romantic stories, almost as if she were like Bathsheba. She is extremely modest. According to her father Brabantio, she is a maiden of spirit so still and quiet that she motions and blushed at herself. Though she is not only modest, quiet, and still, also she is bold, courageous, and firm. Her boldness is shown in her eloping with the Moor and in openly refuting her father's charges against her husband before the senator.
Simplicity and innocence are the keynotes of Desdemona's character. In her love. in her life, and in her death, she displays the simplicity and innocence of her character. She is so innocent that she cannot even imagine the crooked ways of the people of the world. She hardly guesses that some cunning and deceiving rogue has poisoned Othello's mind against her. There is no doubt that Desdemona is perfectly chaste and faithful to her husband. She really loves her husband. She is pure as an angel. She is pure not only physically but also mentally. The idea of playing false to her husband never crosses her mind. She cannot even utter the word, "whore".
Tragedy does not always arise from moral weakness; sometimes it also arises from the error of judgment. And this is precisely the case with Desdemona. She has all the virtues of a woman, but she shows lamentable tactlessness and the power of judgment. She must have kept in mind that she has married a man who is a foreigner to her nation and black in color and that her father had expressed his hatred of his race and color. The faults of judgment that she displays are all due to her youth and inexperience and also because she was married to Othello only recently.
However, Shakespeare is innovative and rare in characterization. His tragic heroines are extremely cordial in their hearts. By and large, they are sometimes timid, nervous, and innocent. They are refined in behaviors and manners. They are extraordinary physical beauties. Desdemona is a such wonderful heroine. Othello was about to murder her. Yet Desdemona did not say a word. Othello will treat her but she behaves normally. Thus her virtues become her weakness. She tamely falls a victim to the vile logo and the brutality of Othello.
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