Othello and Desdemona's love in depth
... Shakespeare strongly makes sure that Othello and Desdemona fall in love through the ear. Therefore, we should understand their love with his viewpoint which makes the love perverted one. Generally, people understand that Othello and Desdemona’s love is pure and genuine. Especially, Desdemona’s love is understood as the virtues of faithfulness and unconditional love regardless of age or race or social position. Othello’s love is basically true, but it brings the tragedy after he falls into Iago’s trap. Othello claims that he loved not wisely, but too well. Some people admit as he says it. However, such an interpretation can be not only emotional, but also a prejudice. They understand Othello and Desdemona’s love with their own viewpoint for love without closely examining situations Othello and Desdemona get involved in and how they fall in love and why. In Othello, the Senator Brabentio gets furious after he heard that his daughter falls in love with the Moor. His insistence that Othello used magic to enchant Desdemona is not unreasonable at all. Although Othello himself admits in a degree that their love seems not right, he strongly denies that he used magic. Desdemona did fall in love with Othello after she heard of his pitiful story, and he did fall in love with her after he recognizes her sympathy. However, she couldn’t fall in love with her “eyes” with an old, black, and low-positioned man. And also, he didn’t think probably that he could be loved by Desdemona because he knew his weaknesses well. Namely, every word Othello said to Desdemona actually used magic and made her arouse her sympathy and finally helped them to fall in love with each other. Love is usually understood as completeness and desire and pursuit for beautiful things. The reason that a man falls in love with a woman is that he sees an ideal and beautiful type of women for him. In turn, a woman falls in love with a man with the same reason. There’s no emotion called love if a person thinks that someone is weird and malevolent. Furthermore, love comes from desire that the person wants to be loved. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, saying that ‘I’ love ‘you’ is same as saying that ‘I’ want to get ‘your’ love (489). In other words, saying ‘I’ love ‘you’ means that ‘I’ am getting ‘your’ love because ‘I’ am qualified to. Assume that A loves B for being loved by B. If A thinks that he or she is disqualified to be loved by B, B can’t give A his or her love. Richard lll simply proves this. Richard talks to himself that he wants to struggle for power because he thinks that he can’t be loved because he is a hunchback in Part lll, Henry VI. If we understand love like that, we can easily notice that Othello’s love never be pure. The reason that Othello didn’t fall in love “at the sight” is that he has self-accusation about his race, age, and low position. Of course, the reason Desdemona didn’t fall in love with him with “her eyes” is that he is an old, black man. Although they fell in love with each other not purely, Othello could get her love with her sympathy for his pitiful words. Desdemona saw rather pitiful side of Othello than an ideal type of men. Therefore, she didn’t love him as an ideal man. Unconsciously or consciously, Othello knew this fact. To him, that is humiliating. He perhaps recognized that her love was not initially genuine. Nevertheless, He got her love appealing to Desdemona with his pitiful side. Thus, we can say that Othello induced Desdemona to fall into him. If so, Desdemona’s love itself has problems. She loved her image which felt pity for Othello, not loved him as a realistically perfect man. She says “I saw his visage in his mind” to her father. That does not show her pure and true love, however. The words mean she loves the image that her sympathy created. She loved an image that she made with her pity, and an unrealistic and fantastic image she said she saw in his heart. In this respect, she dedicated her love to her image rather than to Othello. Besides, the image is not about a prince-like man she had though about. It’s about a model of pity. Desdemona’s love is twisted and falsified for sure. Following an imperfect image also shows that her mental condition is not normal. Othello’s case is the same as Desdemona’s. He loved her after seeing her image, which her words created with her sympathy, in her mind. They loved each other as if each image of them had been a real being for one another. Words are just a tool to express abstract concepts. However, following images the words create is not seeing the reality, but a fantasy with the sight of mind. Moreover, in Othello, the images are crookedly created by a reflective medium called pity. Killing Desdemona, Othello says “I will kill thee, and love thee after” (8-19, ii, V). He thought if Desdemona is alive, she can’t be his own, so she would be his own after he kills her. Furthermore, he thought that there would be no blood and no injury on her skin to kill her so that she would be his own “monumental alabaster” because he considered her body as “the fountain from the which my curr...