June 2010: How does Shakespeare use representations of speech and other dramatic techniques to present Desdemona's character in
the following extract, and in one other episode elsewhere in the play?
OTHELLO Have you pray'd to-night, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA Ay, my lord.
OTHELLO If you bethink yourself of any crime
Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.
DESDEMONA Alas, my lord, what do you mean by that?
OTHELLO Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by:
I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;
No; heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.
DESDEMONA Talk you of killing?
OTHELLO Ay, I do.
DESDEMONA Then heaven
Have mercy on me!
OTHELLO Amen, with all my heart!
DESDEMONA If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
OTHELLO Hum!
DESDEMONA And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then
When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not,
Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.
OTHELLO Think on thy sins.
DESDEMONA They are loves I bear to you.
OTHELLO Ay, and for that thou diest.
DESDEMONA That death's unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame:
These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
They do not point on me.