Hopelessly Hopeful Love

Can anyone really get their fairytale ending? It depends on what your fairytale is, who your Prince or Princess Charming would be, how extravagant the dream is as a whole, and how hard you are willing to fight to make it come true. Some people don’t set very high standards for their dreams, and some set them too high. Some of those who come up with the greatest idea of the love are never able to find it, and even those who are able to find it, allow it slip through their fingers. In William Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice, Othello and Desdemona’s indissoluble love is put to an unthinkable test, and in the end, despite all of the manipulation and turmoil they go through, their love is never completely crushed.

It is very evident from the beginning how much love Othello and Desdemona share with one another. When Othello is brought before the Duke, Senators, and Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, and is questioned about whether he coerced her into the marriage, he responds by saying, “send for the lady to the Sagittary and let her speak of me before her father. If you do find me foul in her report, the trust, the office I do hold of you not only take away, but let your sentence even fall upon my life” (1.3.116-21). What Othello is saying is that they may ask Desdemona herself if she truly loves him, and if she says she does not, then they may kill him right then and there. This being his first response when given a chance to defend himself, Othello is placing much trust in his love for Desdemona and even more so in her love for him. If their love for each other weren’t strong, he would not have put his life in the stakes as he did. Desdemona earns that trust by coming in and telling her father how much she honors, respects, and owes to him, but then adds, addressing towards Othello, “but here’s my husband, and so much duty as my mother showed to you, preferring you before her father, so much I challenge that I may profess due to the Moor my lord” (1.3.187-91). Desdemona tells her father that even though she does respect him and is grateful to him for giving her life and an education, she now must turn her duties to her husband as her mother did before her. She is now taking a risk with her love for Othello by saying these things to her father, because he may become cross or offended by her words. Luckily, however, Brabantio gives Othello and Desdemona’s union his blessing. Even as the story progresses, and Iago begins to plant the seed of mistrust, the love that they hold for each other still remains visible.

Iago poisons Othello’s mind against Desdemona by making him believe that she has been carrying on an affair with his good friend/ head officer, Cassio. After Othello overhears Cassio and Iago’s conversation about Bianca, thinking they are speaking about Desdemona, he says to Iago, “I’ll not expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again” (4.1.205-7). Othello doesn’t want to postpone killing Desdemona by arguing with her again; for fear that he would change his mind and no longer wish to kill her. He knows in mind somewhere, that to kill Desdemona would be wrong, but he is mad with jealousy and has been twisted so much my Iago, that he believes it is the only solution. Even in his maddened state, he still has some realization to his love for Desdemona. Desdemona’s love for Othello never even falters throughout. Othello confronts her about his beliefs of her unfaithfulness, and she denies it and goes to Emilia, Iago’s wife, and asks her how it would be possible for a wife to cheat on her husband. Emilia confesses