Abstract: | In Othello, the female character is believed to have committed adultery and the three main characters are, at one point in the tragedy, accused of witchcraft. Given the fact that both activities were considered ‘female’ crimes in Renaissance, we analyse their close association and their subversive attributes: the woman rebels against her husband in an adulterous relationship, as the witch renounces the true God in witchcraft, thus the subversive character of the woman. Adultery and witchcraft are also marked by sexual betrayal, because in adultery a woman cheats on her husband and sleeps with another man, and in witchcraft the witch is supposed to bind herself to the devil trough sexual intercourse. In my paper I focus on the erotic configurations and on the relations among characters, where power establishes who the dominant and the marginalized hero/heroine of the play is. |
