Uncontrollable passion constitutes the dramatic action of Othello, whereby the violation of cultural conventions inevitably results in widespread disorder. Shakespeare represents a significant time struggle for women through the dual role of Desdemona, purposed to challenge the traditional role of women in a patriarchal society. Ultimately, the inherent inferiority of women facilitates their desire to defy social expectations, however, this consequently hinders their ability to correctly establish priorities, and, through inadvertent actions, ironically eventuates in the death of Desdemona.
Whilst miscegenation was considered a Venetian transgression, performing a secret …show more content…
In dismissing domestic duty for the sake of desire, Desdemona is willing to interfere with state affairs through granting Cassio ‘warrant of thy place’, wherby the diplomatic tone portrays an attempt to exert oneself outside the private domain, however, suggests that failure to discriminate other’s ulterior interests leads to oblivion of potential repercussions. Effectively, an individual’s pursuit of desire to gain momentary authority can cause fatal by-products, as in Desdemona’s imperative question, ‘but shall’t be shortly?’, in which her promptitude and insistence within the matter facilitates Othello’s misinterpretations and eventual actions.
We are able to witness a woman’s courageous acts of noncompliance through the deterioration of a key relationship. Desdemona possesses the audacity to defend herself against Othello’s accusations, through questioning ‘what ignorant sin have I committed?’. Embedded here, is fundamental irony serving to illustrate the initial defiance of social norms, which consequently has caused marital disorder, as depicted in Othello’s repetitious and punctuated response, ‘devil, devil!’, whereby the religious allusion reinforces the fatality in deviating from a woman’s conventional