Raven Culver Essays - Othello, Literature, Fiction,

Raven Culver EN-229 Dr. Laoye 26 January 2017 The Making of the Non-European World in Desdemona In Toni Morrison's play, "Desdemona", she creates another version of Othello giving voice to both Desdemona and Othello post-mortem. In Toni Morrison's version, so to speak, we get to see a different side to Desdemona; a woman with flaws, power, and self-awareness. Throughout the story, Desdemona admits her flaws and successes . She talks about the day she met her husband, the good and bad parts of her marriage, her death, her maid Sa' r an, and the expectations her parents set for her. From Othello's side, he talks about many issues he faced as a Moor and child soldier fighting to prove himself . Many of these issues include his past history of being an orphan, a child slave, the pleasure he got from killing others, and the anger he had could not figure out how to fully grasp and the feelings he had when Iago told him Desdemona was being unfaithful. Though most of the story is told from Desdemona's side, it allows room for other characters thoughts, fee lings, and opinions as well. The first page of the play opens with some of the most powerful lines that seem to reflect the story. The first section really sets the mood for the rest of the story . In this first page, Desdemona says: My name is Desdemona. The word, Desdemona, means misery. It means ill fated. It means doomed......I am not the mea ning of a name I did not choose Men made the rules; women followed them...My p arents, keenly aware and approving of the system, could anticipate the future of a girl child accurately. They were wrong. They knew the system, but they did not know me. (Morrison 14). In this first page, Desdemona is explaining that her parents acc e p ted certain views of society solely because their daughter was a woman. Being a woman, she was expected to follow the rules that men had set for her and other woman and though these were the standards for most, she was different. She was independent. She was not just going to be another part of the system. Later on in the first section, Desdemona accepts the choices she made, whether they were for better or worse. She says, " It is true my earth life held sorrowBut it was my life and, right or wrong, my life was shaped by my own choices and it was mine" (Morrison 16). This really shows a changed Desdemona from Shakespeare's version and it seems to go full circle . The beginning stated that her name meant misery, ill fated, and doomed. Desdemona is owning up to the mistakes she has made, but makes it a point to say that she h ad made the decisions herself. Her name did not set her up for failure, nor did she have any influence from others, she wanted freedom and the right to make her own choices, and she got them. In making her own choices, Desdemona got smacked in the face by reality in this afterlife. S he is caught up in her myth about her relationship to her childhood nurse, Barbary. Barbary says that she was nothing more than her maid. Desdemona did not truly know anything about Barbary, not even her real name. When dealing with Othello, she is caught up in all of the hype and myths about Othello , his fighting skills, and his dark, mysterious skin. The worlds of Desdemona and Othello are of different paths. Othello is quite clear about the problems of being a powerful black man in white Venetian power. H e knew of fidelity on the battlefield, but h is mistake is that he is forced to trust and assume loyalty in a place of power where there is none. Othello murders Desdemona , not out of distrust, but in anger at her delusions, and even his own (Morrison 53) . B efore the end of the play, Desdemona says: I am sick of killing as a solution. It solves nothing. Questions nothing, produces nothing, nothing, but more of itself... My mistake was believing that