Desdemona and Othello: An Adaptation

Abstract

Paula Vogel, after 376 years of the publication of Othello, writes her play Desdemona assuming that Othello is right in his accusation to his wife, and Iago’s story about Desdemona’s infidelity is not a false story. After his ear is poisoned with jealousy, Othello asks his wife Desdemona direct questions: “[a]re not you a strumpet? ... What, not a whore?” (4.2. 81, 84). At that moment, most of the readers, if not all, sympathize with Desdemona in a tremendous way. No one can believe or expect for a minute that Othello’s speech is true and that Desdemona is not a faithful wife. Vogel depicts Desdemona as a whore, that Othello imagines her to be, as the new heroine of her play. Vogel characterizes a female figure who is an adventurer, an ordinary woman who is looking for excitement. Vogel rewrites William Shakespeare’s Othello from a female perspective where the focus is not on a man but on a woman. Vogel creates a three-dimensional female character who is problematic and complicated So stated, Vogel adapts a character from the original and develops her to write a play about a different Desdemona.