Shakespeare’s Othello begins with a marriage between Othello and Desdemona. This marriage was the result of the strong bond of love which they felt together. During their marriage, Othello started to feel a sense of jealousy with Desdemona’s behavior. This jealousy was being created by Desdemona’s beauty and sexual power. With the presence of Desdemona, Othello felt belittled with her sexuality. Female sexuality is a threat to the patriarchal society, and Othello must control it. Desdemona’s sexuality greatly threatens her husband, Othello. To eliminate Desdemona’s sexuality and restore her purity, Othello must kill his wife. This will free Othello from her sexual influence. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Desdemona’s sexual threat initiates Othello’s insecurity towards their marriage, causing him to redefine himself as a man of violent action. Early on in the play, Othello intimates that Desdemona’s sexuality is a threat towards himself and his behavior. Othello pinpoints the source of this degradation when he recounts his relationship with Desdemona: "She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,/And I loved her that she did pity them." Othello moves from a martial world to one governed by maternal pity. This movement robs Othello of his manhood, returning him to a child-like state of dependence. For example, Janet Adelman states "Making himself susceptible to Desdemona’s pity, that is, Othello unmakes the basis for his martial identity, exchanging it for one dependent on her." This self-sufficiency affected his masculine identity, which changed because of his new need of her love. This return to childhood behavior reawakens Othello’s sense of vulnerability that Othello managed to conceal as a soldier. Furthermore, Othello tells the senate, "For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,/Till now some nice moons wasted…" The idea that mo...
