The Desdemona effect : Empathy, retelling and seriality in Shakespeare’s Othello

Abstract

This essay focuses on Othello and in particular on the role(s) of Desdemona within the structure of the play. It argues that Shakespeare has written into this play an interesting anticipation of serial art. It is emphasized in the beginning of the drama that Desdemona has fallen in love not with Othello but with the story of Othello which she longed to hear over and over again, even asking for a mediator to sustain this exciting experience. Spellbound by the repetition of a story that incites her strong imagination, Desdemona conflates the ‘romance’ with her own reality. She implements and ‘adapts’ what she considers Othello’s impressive narrative by creating two powerful roles for herself, a heroic one of the ‘fair Warrior’, and an empathic one of the passionate mediator and advocate. This reading sheds new light on Desdemona’s excessive love of theatricality, seriality and virtuoso performance which, in this case, is directly linked to her tragic end because it covers up her sense of reality and obscures the relations in her own life.