Else let them know, The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. Emilia encourages Desdemona to regard herself as Emilia does: as an individual worthy of love, life, and respect. Desdemona draws strength from Emilia as a friend, protector, healer, and would-be savior—but Emilia cannot save her. Othello does not merely murder Desdemona, he silences her: he robs Desdemona of breath, and the ability to speak the words that would exonerate and liberate her. Her voice passes instead to Emilia, and she endows Emilia with the exalted power to speak truth, as only true friends can.
O gull! O dolt, As ignorant as dirt! She loved thee, cruel Moor. Their bodies lying side by side, Desdemona and Emilia recall fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English monuments and tombs carved with images of male friends who chose to spend eternity buried together, cementing a bond more sacred than blood or marriage.
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What is the great difference between Desdemona and Emilia? How Does Desdemona Die? They all come under the heading of "false" women. Desdemona immediately and completely denies the accusation, and her husband speaks scornfully and bitterly, throws money at her, as if she were a prostitute, and goes out.
Having made the accusation and been denied, he reacts with anger rather than reassessment. Desdemona's reaction to the confrontation is the opposite. She tells Emilia she is "half asleep," either as a convenient lie to keep her privacy or as an expression of emotional exhaustion. Emilia invites conversation, but her mistress, near to weeping but unable to do it, can only think of one course of action, the wedding sheets.
Wedding sheets are one of the major items in a well brought-up young woman's set of household linen that she brings to her marriage. These sheets would be of the finest cloth, hand-embroidered by the bride herself, and would have taken a considerable time to make.
In some Mediterranean cultures, after the marriage ceremony, the couple retire to the bedroom and consummate the marriage. The wedding sheets are then hung out on the balcony, to show to all that the bride had been a virgin.
So wedding sheets have both intimate and public connotations of things being done according to correct procedure. By putting the wedding sheets on the bed, Desdemona is symbolically trying to renew and strengthen the marriage and remind Othello that he too has duties of love.
Iago is keen to hear how Othello has spoken to Desdemona but is disconcerted when she starts to weep: "Do not weep, do not weep: alas the day! Perhaps, like many men, he construes a weeping woman as a potential emotional manipulator, and Iago instinctively guards himself against any pull toward pity or mercy. Desdemona tells Emilia to lay her wedding sheets on the bed for that night.
Emilia says to her husband that Othello must have been deceived by some villain, the same sort of villain who made Iago suspect Emilia of sleeping with Othello. Iago assures Desdemona that Othello is merely upset by some official business, and a trumpet flourish calls Emilia and Desdemona away to dinner with the Venetian emissaries. Roderigo enters, furious that he is still frustrated in his love, and ready to make himself known in his suit to Desdemona so that she might return all of the jewels that Iago was supposed to have given her from him.
Iago also lies, saying that Othello is being sent to Mauritania, in Africa, although he is really being sent back to Venice. He tells Roderigo that the only way to prevent Othello from taking Desdemona away to Africa with him would be to get rid of Cassio. After dinner, Othello proposes to walk with Lodovico, and sends Desdemona to bed, telling her that he will be with her shortly and that she should dismiss Emilia. Desdemona seems aware of her imminent fate as she prepares for bed.
She says that if she dies before Emilia, Emilia should use one of the wedding sheets for her shroud. Emilia says that she would not deceive her husband for jewels or rich clothes, but that the whole world is a huge prize and would outweigh the offense. This leads Emilia to speak about the fact that women have appetites for sex and infidelity just as men do, and that men who deceive their wives have only themselves to blame if their wives cheat on them.
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