Author Question: What prevents Othello from being moved by Desdemonas appeal (IV, ii,3392)? What will be an ideal ... (Read 44 times)

misspop · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

What prevents Othello from being moved by Desdemonas appeal (IV, ii,3392)?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What does the conversation between Emilia and Desdemona (Scene iii) tellus about the nature of each?

What will be an ideal response?

epscape · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

His heart has been hardened against her by Cassios leering and smirking and Biancas possession of the handkerchief. He says that he could have endured illness, poverty, loss of all prospects, and even public scorn and mockery, as long as he had her love to sustain him, but the thought that she no longer loves him is the one thing he cannot cope with. Note the image of his heart as a cistern for foul toads / To knot and gender in (IV, ii, 6364): his comparison of human actions to those of loathsome animals shows how completely his thinking has been taken over by Iago.

Answer to Question 2

Emilia shows herself to be feisty and rather crass; she feels that the shenanigans of men license women to act the same way, and says that she would betray her husband for the whole world: Why, the wrong is but a wrong i the world, and having the world for your labor, tis a wrong in your own world, you might quickly make it right (lines 8081). Desdemona, on the other hand, rejects such moral relativism: she obviously feels that the wrong is a wrong in another world beyond this one, and seeks by the bad example of others not to justify her own lapses but to seek to improve herself.