Desdemona's purity

• ‘A maid that paragons description and wild fame’

  Her beauty is beyond description.
• ‘Divine Desdemona’


  from Heaven
• ‘Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife’


  Act 4, scene 2. Tragic as Desdemona maintains her innocence and defines her faithfulness to Othello
• How do critics view Desdemona's purity?

  Some modern feminist critics see Desdemona as a hideous embodiment of the downtrodden (oppressed) woman
• 'I am obedient'


  continuing to obey Othello’s orders from the early “happy” phase of their relationship through to the later stages of his jealous ravings. Even when he orders Desdemona to go to her bed towards the end of Act 4, she still replies with the submissive “I will, my lord” Act 4. In her final breath she still remains true to her husband, saying “Commend me to my kind lord” and providing Othello with an alibi that he does not use. She appears to have completely accepted her role as subordinate and obedient wife.
• ‘Lay on my bed my wedding sheets’

  Desdemona wishes to do this to maintain her chastity and show Othello her bedsheets even after he calls her a ‘whore’, implying that she is a prostitute. Her purity reinstates the tragic context.
• Why is Act 4, scene 3 so short

  It builds dramatic tension, possibly reflecting that time is running out for Desdemona.
• ‘DESDEMONA SINGS WILLOW SONG’

  Foreshadowing. It is about a man that dies because his lover abandons him. Elizabethan audiences would be familiar
• ‘There are women who abuse their husbands in such gross kind?’


  The question to Emilia shows Desdemona’s innocence as she does not understand the crime of adultery. She doubts that women are capable of cheating on their husbands, underscoring how distant she is from committing such acts.