Desdemona

is in need of being destroyed because she is subversive. She is the embodiment of power in defending her right to choose her husband.

Commenting on violence against female characters in drama of the Jacobean period, he asserts that view that 'Jacobean tragedies offer up their scenes of excessive punishments as if mutilating the female could somehow correct political corruption. The female in correction may be completely innocent... yet in play after play she demands her own death or else claims responsibility for her murder.' He suggests Desdemona has to be destroyed because she is subversive. Unlike many feminist critics, Tennenhouse suggests that Desdemona is the 'embodiment of power' when she appears in Act 1 and defends her right to choose her own husband.

Leonard TennenhouseThinkers

Leonard Tennenhouse