Desdemona

Othello (play)

Desdemona is 'a silly woman' whose virtue was suspect.

is like any country kitchen-maid with her sweetheart.

Desdemona was behaving like 'any country kitchen-maid with her sweetheart' during her vulgar conversation with Iago.

is absent of any moral lesson other than beign a cation to maidens not to run away with 'blackamoors' without their parents' consent.

Thomas Rymer, one of the play's most negative critics, wrote a commentary on Othello in A Short View of the Tragedy (1693). Rymer was outraged by the idea of a black hero and would not accept that the play was a great tragedy, declaring the 'defect' of Othello was that it did not have a moral lesson. Rymer suggested that Othello might serve only as 'a caution' to maidens not to run away with 'blackamoors' without their parents' consent. Rymer was as dismissive of the implausible characters as the plot: Othello was a 'jealous booby', Iago too villainous to be believed, and Desdemona a woman without sense because she married a 'blackamoor'.

Thomas RymerThinkers

Thomas Rymer