On Desdemona's Fate

While we read Othello in class this week, I couldn't help but become fixated on the tragedy of Desdemona. Yes, Othello saw his life fall apart, but only because of his inability to think for himself. Desdemona, on the other hand, was a victim of the poor choices of the men around her.

She was, as Lana Del Rey would say, that "candle in the wind" that Lana sings against being in "Mariners Apartment Complex." However, when I looked up the song to add a link to it here, I realized some other parallels between Desdemona and how Lana characterizes herself in the song.

Just as Lana laments about how "You took my sadness out of context," Desdemona insists to Othello that what he saw was not actually what happened. Desdemona is also, as Lana states, "the bolt, the lightning, the thunder / Kind of girl who's gonna make you wonder / Who you are and who you've been." She reinforces his valiant self-image; he couldn't have gotten to this high point in his life without her by his side.

The way in which Othello leans on her for some semblance of security amidst a world a much different from the one he grew up in gives Desdemona a kind of authority over him. Poet Ocean Vuong said something once about how there is a power in submission — that for one to even exert power over another requires the former to emotionally allow this. In this way, Desdemona can be viewed as some kind of authority figure...in her power to make Othello wonder who he is and who he's been. Contrary to the passive character I initially thought she was, she's shown another way power can look like — silent, but nevertheless one's own.💌