Othello: Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 168-174

Passage: “These things to hear / Would Desdemona seriously incline. / But still the house affairs would draw her hence, / Which ever as she could with haste dispatch / She’d come again, and with a greedy ear devour up my discourse.”

Context: Othello is explaining how he won over Desdemona.

Significance:

Themes in this passage include a woman’s agency and cultural narratives/discourse.

In regards to a woman’s agency, Desdemona is said to have “with a greedy ear devour[ed]” the stories that Othello would tell. The word “devour” itself suggests the image of an animal, and in this case an animal of prey. In a sense, Desdemona’s ability and desire to know more about Othello reveals her agency as a woman. She is the one preying upon the history of Othello. Furthermore, Desdemona would “seriously incline,” indicating literal action of moving forward. Not only is she “devour[ing]” his discourse, but the action of moving forward indicates that she accepts this discourse as well and is “moving forward” into life with a somewhat different view than that of her society.

By accepting his cultural discourse we move into the ideas of cultural narratives, their creation, and their destruction. For example, Othello’s narratives contain new ideas (be they of race, gender, etc.) while Desdemona’s physical inclining and her extreme desire to know more show someone accepting such ideas. This reveals that even someone as pure and good as Desdemona can accept something new and frightening. The combination of Othello’s stories and Desdemona’s acceptance represents a possible future destruction of current narratives. This can be much more frightening than Othello’s stories, for it questions the validity and the “common sense” aspects of current narratives: what was believed to be true is now simply viewed as an invented lie.

Of course, a few other things must be considered. Othello is explaining Desdemona’s agency through his voice, indicating a lack of voice on Desdemona’s part, which in turn leads to a loss of agency. Furthermore, this idea of devouring narratives is undermined when Emilia says that men use women as food and then “belch” them because the idea of “devouring” people’s narratives is transferred from Desdemona to men in general (3.4.120-123).

Overall, perhaps this reveals the possibility of female agency, but its inability to coexist in the play's current social narratives. One or the other must be destroyed, and in this case it was Desdemona's agency.

Evelia Manzo