Othello

Did Desdemona experience any growth or changes during the story (explain)?

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Desdemona becomes more and more confused throughout the play. Her love for Othello is pure and she is more than happy to be with him and to be his wife despite the fact that she has created conflict with her family through her decisions. She grows in that she realizes the lengths to which people go to show their jealousy and evil (Iago), and she comes to realize that people overreact (Othello) when they are given incorrect information. In some sense we can say that she loses her innocence.

Desdemona undergoes a dramatic transformation. In the beginning, she is adventurous, open, and wants to accompany her husband everywhere..... even into battle. She loves excitement, which is one of the things that attracted her to Othello in the first place. Othello himself admits that he wooed his wife with stories of his past; action, danger and adventure galore.

Regardless, Desdemona's youth and inexperience become part of the tragedy. Attracted by adventure she fails to understand the implications and delicacies of real life. She is naive; she's been protected; she's just a young girl enjoying first love. Desdemona doesn't understand jealousy or infidelity, and partially because of this she opens herself up to Othello's anger and abuse. By the end of the novel, she is so confused and beaten down, that the woman who once desired to be a man like her husband, submitted without fight to her own murder.

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Othello