Deconstructing Woman

This article was originally published by Suite101 in 2001. Reprinted with permission.

During my first English class in university we studied the Shakespearean play Othello. I must confess I did not like it. It was a tragic tale of greed, jealousy and betrayal. And love—at least, that is what the academics professed. Personally, I never felt much love in the tale between Othello and Desdemona. I was never convinced. I was relieved when we moved onto 19th century poetry; I put Othello out of my mind, eager to leave the play far behind me.

Three years later, I enrolled in the second required English course of my program. The course was offered under various themes; I chose love as my theme. As luck would have it, the professor chose Othello as one of the love stories. He, apparently, was convinced of the love between Othello and Desdemona. For our first assignment, we were to write a love letter expressing our deep love for Othello in the character of Desdemona, or vice versa. I could hardly believe it. I adamantly believed, and will always believe, there was never any such love.

The story roughly begins when we discover the black Moor Othello has married the fair Desdemona without her father’s permission. It seems that when Othello was at the family home recounting tales of floods, ‘hair-breadth scapes’, being sold to slavery, meeting cannibals, and the like, Desdemona fell in love with him, and he with her. Desdemona’s father, a senator, takes them to court, but the lovers prevail and immediately leave for Cyprus. Now, on the sidelines lurks the evil Iago, Othello’s ancient. Consumed with jealousy he decides to betray Othello. How? He sets out to convince Othello that Desdemona—sweet, lovely, charming, innocent Desdemona—is an unfaithful whore. His plan works; Othello becomes convinced of Desdemona’s infidelity. Subsequently, he kills her. He kills her because he loved her ‘too well’. (Now, why does that have such a familiar ring to it?)

This is the great and tragic love of Othello. He kills his wife. Since when does a man who kills his wife adore, worship and love her? If all it takes is one strategically place handkerchief to convince a man that the woman he loves is a liar and a whore, how deep is his love? Furthermore, even if she had been unfaithful, if he had respected her—and respect is generally believed to be a prerequisite for love—would he have killed her upon discovering this dishonest deed of hers?

Desdemona herself becomes aware that Othello is not the man she married. She keeps pleading for him to tell her what is wrong; she keeps hoping her tender lover will return. Desdemona is the classic abused wife. She is also the classic ‘half-woman’ living only for true love to arrive so that her life can begin anew. I wanted to slap her and shout, “Wake up, Desdemona. He doesn’t love you the way you think he does. Regardless of what you believe, you are only property to him; you can never shame or disobey him. Leave! Go home! Save yourself!”

She stays, of course. And she dies. She dies waiting for Othello to become the man she married, the man she thought she married. She pays a grave price for her illusions of love. For, that is all they ever were—illusions. Desdemona fell in love with a brave, adventurous, bold, romantic, larger than life superman. Othello fell in love with a sweet, innocent, virginal myth. When the illusion was shattered, he killed her. Yet, the academics profess this to be a story of tragic love; my English professor included. When I asked if I might investigate the notion that it wasn’t actually love but simply the illusion of love, he seemed genuinely shocked.

Feminists, however, are not shocked. In fact, in The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer comments, “ever since Othello killed his wife because he loved ‘too well’, women have been murdered by love, with love and through love.” Literature, film and art are filled with images of men ‘conquering’ women in the name of love. For instance, the barbaric hero who throws the feisty heroine over his shoulder taming her with his ‘tender fierceness’; the man who won’t take no for an answer, wearing down the woman’s resistance until she succumbs to his love; or the bridegroom who insists that his lover give away her name, her family and her religion to become a member of his clan, effectively turning her into a virtual slave as she gives birth to his heirs, all the while convincing her that this is her dream come true. In these classic images of love and romance women are seen as objects, obsessions, possessions, or all three. Sadly, they often reflect reality’s version of ‘love’ as well.

We are all familiar with the statistics warning women about the violence that may be inflicted on her by her husband. In fact, a woman is more likely to be murdered by her spouse and/or lover than any other man, more likely to be raped by a friend than a serial rapist. Desdemona was not the exception; she is the rule. Male academia, however, has transformed another example of this historical abuse of women into a tragic love story. I wonder how the tale would have been interpreted had Desdemona killed Othello after he had been falsely accused of infidelity. Quite certainly she would have been charged as a crazed, psychopathic heathen. Maybe even a witch. Her excuse of loving him only ‘too well’ would have been met with condemnation and outrage, both within the tale and throughout male academia.

Not so for Othello. He becomes martyred. Poor Othello. He murdered his lovely wife only to discover she was innocent. Poor, poor Othello.

Yeah, right.

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley