It is not morally wrong at all, but it is socially
unacceptable in this sexist society. A woman, certainly a wife, is meant to be seen and
not heard. Desdemona breeches her bounds as a wife because she crosses over into the
military world of male reputation.
Desdemona is merely a
victim of Iago's trap and Othello's jealousy. Desdemona is a bit naive, sure, and she
has hurried into a marriage with a man whom she does not know well, but she is blameless
in interceding for Cassio. "The love she bears Cassio," she believes, is Platonic, but
it comes across--thanks to Iago's treachery--as romantic to Othello's jealous
ears.
Ironically, Iago knows Othello better than Desdemona
knows her husband. Iago knows that Othello is jealous of Cassio because he is white,
young, good-looking, and Christian (the ideal European male). As an older, black,
former slave and pagan, Othello has a deep-set inferiority complex. When Iago plants
the idea that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair, it flares his feelings of
inferiority and jealousy. Othello, above all else, does not want to be made a cuckold:
a man whose wife cheats on him.
Desdemona, playing the
dutiful wife, wants to please her husband and his friends. She believes her duty is to
cross over into the male military world and advocate for Cassio. Little does she know
that her pleadings are leading to her and Cassio's demise.
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