Othello (Vol. 35) | Harry Berger Jr. (essay date 1996)
Harry Berger Jr. (essay date 1996)
SOURCE: "Impertinent Trifling: Desdemona's Hander-chief," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3, Fall, 1996, pp. 235-50.
[In the following essay, Berger focuses on the character of Desdemona and the significance of her handkerchief.]
—that's but a trifle here—
—we make trifles of terrors—
Too much attention has been paid to the symbolic meanings of the famous handkerchief and too little to such considerations as its putative size (is it as big as a flag or as small as a facial tissue?) and the odd circumstances of its appearance and removal. Just when Othello's rage has reached a first climax, Desdemona enters to tell him he is keeping his dinner and dinner guests waiting (3.3.283-85).1 "I am to blame," he replies, and her next questions—"Why is your speech so faint? are you not well?" (11. 286-87)—tell us to hear...
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