초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The study explores Desdemona’s questionable presence in a traditionally male-dominated space—Cyprus, a frontline naval base of Venice. When Desdemona arrives at the port, Othello greets his wife calling her his “fair warrior” (2.1.182). There is no cress-dressing in Shakespeare’s Othello, yet Desdemona’s movement from the city of Venice to a naval garrison is itself an act of cross-bordering—a crossing from a female activity to a male action, from civil society to male-dominated military society. The story of what happens in the frontier garrison draws our attention to the gender codes. It is in this context that traditionally Desdemona’s location in the garrison presents a negative notion of fear that women like her, who live outside the norms of acceptable behavior, might act in more unacceptable manners and can lead men like Othello astray. This negative tone, represented in the form of Desdemona’s influence on Othello, was apparent in Shakespeare’s England where women accompanies their lover- or husband-soldiers were only depicted as whores not in a tolerant view. In this study, I argue that Desdemona in female dress in Cyprus and Othello’s calling for her: “fair warrior” is noteworthy, because it shows her willingness to participate in her husband’s military activities contrasts with the constraints of the lives of ordinary women, predicting the contradictory, or potential contradictory, in women’s status in the military. This study suggests that looking closely at the ways that Shakespeare uses the aforementioned oxymoronic expression (fair+warrior) may awaken our sensibilities to paradoxical truths concerning women’s gender codes in the military and provide insight into the question of whether there are acceptable places for women in the military.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
military, Desdemona, oxymoron, gender codes, warrior, whore
