# Why did Othello Murder Desdemona?



## brianwalker

Othello is widely held as one of Shakespeare's great tragedies and a great work of art. However, today I read Graham Bradshaw's "Dramatic Intent in Othello" in Harold Bloom's Shakespeare Modern Critical Edition which was a devastating refutation of the "double time" theory. [*PM me for full text, I have a pdf of the book.* and access to jstor, obviously.]

The double time theory holds that a long time passed between the arrival of the gang at Cyprus and Desdemona's murder, while the heterodox theory holds that there was no double time, and everything that happened in Cyprus took in place 36 hours.

The orthodox theory is that Othello and Desdemona married, and then Othello thought that Desdemona cheated on him with Cassio in Cyprus, but this is only possible with the double time theory. Without double time Othello couldn't have possibly suspected that Desdemona cheated on him with Cassio because there literally was no time for that to happen. So little time passes that everything that happens we see.



> Throughout this ﬁrst half of the play the only indeterminate period of time
> is that taken up by the voyage to Cyprus, when (it is emphasized) Othello and
> Desdemona are in different ships. This carefully managed compression of the
> Italian story's time scheme maximizes tension and the continuity between the
> scenes is a theatrically impressive way, but it also ensures-takes pains to
> ensure-that the newly married lovers have so little time together. When
> Othello leads Desdemona off to bed some hours after their arrival in Cyprus (and
> immediately after telling Cassio to report the next morning at his "earliest"
> convenience) he conﬁrms that the marriage still has not been consummated:
> 
> Come my deere Love,
> The purchase made, the fruites are to ensue,
> That proﬁt's yet to come 'tweene me, and you.
> 
> The stage direction for Iago's entrance follows these lines, leaving open the
> possibility that he arrives on stage just in time to hear Othello's words and
> perhaps register some malignantly interested response. Be that as it may, his next
> words show that Iago is well aware that the marriage still hasn't been
> consummated, and he immediately insinuates, in his busy, tirelessly malicious
> way, that Othello is neglecting his official duties:
> 'tis not yet ten o'th'clocke. Our Generall cast us thus earely for the
> love of his Desdemona: Who, let us not therefore blame; he hath not
> yet made wanton the night with her. (2.3.13-16)
> Learning that the marriage still hasn't been consummated is, for the audience, a
> conﬁrmation rather than a surprise-precisely because Shakespeare's handling of
> time has been both careful and suggestive, constantly bringing home how little
> time these lovers are allowed together. In the second scene they were interrupted
> by Iago's warning that Brabantio's posse is on its way. Then, after Desdemona's
> bold affirmation, in the Senate scene, that she would not be "bereft" of the
> "Rites," it was determined that the newlyweds would leave that night, in different
> ships; as Othello tells Desdemona, he has
> but an houre
> 
> Of Love, of worldly matter, and direction
> To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
> (1.3.329-31


The heterodox theory, presented here, argues that, in accordance with single time theory, and agreeing with Bradshaw, that what Othello suspected was that Desdemona had relations with Cassio BEFORE the play, since Othello was with Cassio when Othello wooed Desdemona in secret (remember that they elope and they only get married later).

Bradshaw says that once double-time is thrown out we can conclude definitively that Othello never consummated the marriage since if he consummated it the first night in Cyprus things wouldn't make much sense because he would know from the blood spilled from Desdemona that she was a virgin and that she couldn't have had carnal relations with Cassio before their marriage. Bradshaw writes:



> I return to this point later, but advocates of the "double-time" theory are
> more concerned that Desdemona hasn't had time to sleep with Cassio. So, the
> "difficulty" that-as the New Arden editor puts it-threatens to make
> "nonsense" of the "dramatic action" is that, within the play's "short time," there
> is no time in which "adultery" could have occurred. Nobody doubts that (as
> Frank Kermode assures us in the Riverside edition) Shakespeare "is clearly
> aware" of this difficulty.
> 
> 27 But we are to suppose that, having taken such pains to
> get into it, Shakespeare "resolved" it not by a real extension, or loosening, of the
> stage time, like that in the second half of The Merchant of Venice, but by what the
> New Arden editor, M. R. Ridley, describes as a craftily engineered "trick": "What
> Shakespeare is doing is to present, before our eyes, an unbroken series of events
> happening in 'short time', but to present them against a background, of events
> not presented but implied, which gives the needed impression of 'long time'"
> (lxx). Instead of feeling uneasy about a play that must resort to a trick "to make
> the whole progress of the plot credible" (lxix), the excited Ridley affirms that this
> "throws light on Shakespeare's astonishing skill and judgment as a practical
> craftsman.... He knew to a fraction of an inch how far he could go in playing a
> trick upon his audience, and the measure of his success is precisely the
> unawareness of the audience in the theatre that any trick is being played" (lxx).
> Dover Wilson similarly invites us to discover and marvel over "yet another piece
> of dramatic legerdemain, the most audacious in the whole canon, which has
> come to be known as Double Time."


If the double-time theory is false, then Othello had no reason to suspect that Desdemona did anything after their marriage.



> But now we can observe what is most strange about that basic assumption
> on which the "double-time" theory rests. It is always taken for granted that there
> is a "difficulty" that, as Dover Wilson proudly observes, "might well have seemed
> insuperable to any ordinary dramatist": "For, if Othello and Desdemona
> consummated their marriage during the ﬁrst night in Cyprus, when could she
> have committed the adultery that Iago charges her with?" (Preface, New
> Shakespeare Othello, xxxii). This is true only if we are using the word "adultery"
> in a strict, legalistic sense, but what warrant does the play provide for supposing
> that Othello is concerned only with what might have happened after his
> marriage? The answer is, none.


Another theory is that Othello want insane and was poisoned, but this drains all meaning from the play since the "he was crazy" excuse explains away any and all contradictions and thus has to be rejected; "character X was crazy" "explains" everything and explains nothing.


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## brianwalker

Bradshaw explains why the anti-double-time timeline of the play makes more sense and coheres with Iago's timidity.



> In exploiting what Desdemona revealed, Iago must tread very carefully: *if the
> marriage was consummated hours before, Othello is likely to know whether his
> wife was a virgin. Throughout this ﬁrst stage of the assault, what is in question is
> not the absurd suggestion that Desdemona has committed adultery with Cassio
> since her wedding, in what would indeed be "stolen hours"; Iago's insinuation, as
> he feels his way forward, is that something took place before the wedding,*
> something that can be expected to continue and that would explain Desdemona's
> passionate concern to have Cassio reinstated-and we see the "Monster"
> emerging in Othello's own mind as he begins to discern what is in question.
> Similarly, when Iago later promises Othello that he will persuade Cassio to "tell
> the Tale anew; / Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when / He hath, and
> is againe to tope your wife" (4.1.85-86), this is not another "indication" of "long
> time," as editors tell us: Iago is once again conjuring up that nightmare of a


Now we get into semantics about what "cuckold" and "adultery" means.



> To dismiss this horribly long-lived idea that the play depends upon a trick
> to make its action credible is a critical relief, but it is historically disquieting-
> unless we can also see why the theory has had so long a life. Here, rather than
> simply dismiss it as groundless, we should notice how it is grounded on that
> willingness to generalize about the audience as a monolithic entity which has
> now resurfaced in the "new" historicism and on a corresponding interpretative
> assumption about Jacobean attitudes which emerges very clearly in Dover
> Wilson's New Shakespeare edition: "An accusation of premarital incontinence
> would not have served either [Iago's] purpose or Shakespeare's, since adultery was
> required to make Othello a cuckold, and it is the dishonourable stigma of
> cuckoldry that maddens Othello once his conﬁdence has gone and, we may add,
> greatly increased the excitement for a Jacobean audience" (xxxii). This of course
> raises fundamental questions about what Shakespeare's play is "about," but Dover Wilson tells us: in "its simplest terms, ... the tragedy of Othello represents
> the destruction of a sublime love between two noble spirits through the intrigues
> of a villain devilish in his cunning and unscrupulousness" (***). These terms are
> indeed "simple," not least because they preserve the Coleridgean assumption
> that murdering Desdemona would have been all right, or at least compatible with
> being very noble, if only she had committed adultery.
> "We must obey the time," Othello tells his bride: the "rites" she so eagerly
> awaits must wait. But here, too, critics who are obedient to the myth of "double
> time" get into further difficulties. As I observed earlier, there is nothing in 2.3 to
> tell us-and the accelerated time makes it more than ever difficult to guess-
> whether the marriage is consummated before the riot, or after it, or not at all.
> The established assumption is that it is consummated, and some readings-like
> Stephen Greenblatt's in his immensely inﬂuential Renaissance Self-Fashioning-
> fall apart if we think that it isn't


Back in Jacobean times a woman's chastity was considered sacred and the plinth of her "worth", so to speak. In many cultures if a bride is presented as a virgin but really isn't a virgin, horrible punishment ensues, thus the demand for "proof of virginity". Arthur Mcgee shows how this makes sense in the context of the use of language in Shakespeare's other works of the same time period.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2867955?uid=2&uid=4&sid=56053515093



> Thus a man whose fiancee was unfaithful would consider himself a "cuckold".
> Furnivall records such a case where the fiance makes a claim on his "wife's"
> property yet is unwilling to marry her "biecause she hath plaid the hoore, &
> committed adultery; and therefore I may iustly refuse her by the order of the
> Lawe"'.8 Two other cases of this kind of adultery are quoted by Furnivall (p.
> xlv and pp. 59-6i). A similar situation occurs in Measure for Measure, where
> Angelo is supposed to have deflowered Isabella while betrothed to Mariana and
> is accused of being an "adulterous thief" (V. i. 40) .
> 
> There are traces also of "cuckold" being used to describe a man who married
> a woman who had been promiscuous. For example, in the last act of Measure for
> Measure Lucio's fear of marrying a ***** is greater than his fear of being
> whipped and hanged:
> 
> I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a *****. Your highness said
> even now, I made you a duke: good my lord, do not recompense me in
> making me a cuckold. (V. i. 5i6)
> 
> In Dekker's The Honest ***** we find Matheo in a similar predicament: the
> Duke compels him to marry Bellafront whom~i Matheo robbed of her virginity
> and who then turned *****; and so Matheo considers himself a cuckold.19 The
> word "cuckoo" is used in the same way in The Witch of Edmonton.20
> There are therefore good grounds for believing that the words used in Othello
> to describe Desdemona's supposed adultery-"cuckold", "horned man", "false",
> "false to wedlock"-refer to adultery committed before marriage, i.e. to sleeping
> with Cassio in Venice. And when Othello says: "But if I give my wife a
> handkerchief" (IV. i. io) we should read this to mean "But if I give my fiancee
> a handkerchief".
> 
> Desdemona and became engaged to her either according to the de futuro or,
> more likely, the de praesenti form; in either event he would have considered
> Desdemona to be his wife from then onwards. A Shakespearian audience would
> have expected a betrothal to precede marriage, for betrothal was a ritual, how-
> ever privately performed, that everyone observed. If in modern times engage-
> ments are dispensed with on occasion, and marriage is entered into without
> preamble, in Shakespeare's time the reverse was the custom-marriage in church
> might be delayed or avoided but betrothal was of great importance. Shakespeare
> himself, we should remember, probably entered wedlock with Anne Hathaway
> by becoming engaged to her.
> 
> Thus in the "Temptation scenes" Iago insinuates that Cassio and Desdemona
> have been lovers in Venice, the final proof being that Cassio possesses the hand-
> kerchief-the symbol of Desdemona's infidelity during betrothal. It follows
> also that the indications of Long Time-notably Bianca's not having seen
> Cassio for a week, and Jago's lie that he has heard Cassio talk in his sleep about
> Desdemona-refer to Venice. Furthermore, Bianca, as she is a known *****
> who has been Cassio's mistress in Venice, represents for the audience the
> Desdemona of Othello's poisoned imagination-
> . . . that cunning ***** of Venice
> That married with Othello. (IV. ii. 88-89)
> I suggest therefore that the plot of Othello to which we have become ac-
> customed is not Shakespeare's, and that the "problem" of the time-relations is in
> fact the symptom of this misinterpretation. It is wildly improbable that Shake-
> speare provided time indications which to a contemporary audience suggested
> infidelity in Venice if he intended them to believe that Othello suspected
> Desdemona of adultery in Cyprus. The audience, for instance, who saw the play
> in I613 at the wedding festivities of the Princess Elizabeth could not have in-
> terpreted  the play in the modern manner when only three months earlier at
> the royal betrothal the couple had become "husband" and "wife"
> 
> On these grounds I suggest that a new assessment of Othello is required.
> The change from adultery to infidelity in Venice alters Othello's motive for the
> murder, besides being the most important time indication in the play. Shake-
> speare was undoubtedly careless of time except when it was important dramat-
> ically, but in presenting Othello to a contemporary audience he was just as care-
> ful to have Desdemona murdered on the second night in Cyprus as he was to
> ensure that his Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March


Mcgee ascribes the historical misunderstanding to the fact that a scrupulous, scholarly treatment of Shakespeare didn't happen until the 19th century, and that when Thomas Rymer wrote his critique of Shakespeare even Rymer misunderstood Shakespeare because there were no exhaustive scholarly resources and people simply didn't care that much about Shakespeare, and that Rymer mistook that Othello for having consummated the marriage on the first night, which would make things impossible since Othello would know from Desdemona's blood that she never cheated on him with Cassio and the timeline of the plot makes it impossible for Desdemona to have had sex with Cassio.

In my eyes the problem is that with the passage of time people have forgotten what chastity meant to people back in medieval times; when the Vandals sacked Rome and women were raped, the Romans challenged St. Augustine to write why the Christian women didn't commit suicide now that their chastity was gone. Today it is patently absurd, inconceivable that a woman should have to justify why she doesn't commit suicide once raped, just as it's absurd to think that Othello murdered Desdemona because she wasn't a virgin bride, and since he couldn't take her virginity he had to take her life, and spill blood by other means.

Bradshaw concludes.



> By now we might feel relieved that the textual evidence of whether the
> marriage is or is not consummated in 2.3 is so uncertain. For if we think the
> received idea that it is consummated throws out too many problems, we are free
> to prefer the alternative reading. Desdemona wants the sheets to be relaid
> because she is still a virgin, and still poignantly longs for "such observancie / As
> ﬁts the Bridall" (3.4.147-48). When Othello determines that "Thy Bed lust-
> stain'd, shall with Lusts blood bee spotted" he is tormenting himself with the
> deluded thought of what somebody else has done: as Montaigne might say,
> another bed, other sheets. *Virginity, like a life, can only be taken once: in
> Othello's diseased, self-tormenting imagination all that remains for him to do-
> the only way in which he can "shed her blood"-is bloody murder.*
> 
> That tragicomic irony is horrible enough, but the ﬁnal scene then gives it
> a still more dreadful visit. Just as Desdemona could not bring herself to say the ord "*****" in 4.2, Othello tells the "chaste Starres" that he cannot "name" the
> "Cause," but will not-after all-"shed her blood" (5.2.2-3): "Yet Ile not shed
> her blood.... Yet she must dye." That tangle of yets shows that what he is talking
> about-what he has not changed his mind about-is not whether to kill her, but
> how; it also shows how this latest resolution is still insanely ensnarled with his
> obsessive sense of what he has never done and thinks he can never do-and what
> his still-virginal bride still hopes he will do, as she lies waiting for him on those
> relaid, unspotted wedding sheets. The murder is indeed this marriage's only
> consummation, and the ghastly tragicomic parody of an erotic "death."
> 
> Desdemona. And yet I feare you: for you're fatall then
> When your eyes rowle so. Why I should feare, I know not,
> Since guiltinesse I know not: But yet I feele I feare.
> Othello. Thinke on thy sinnes.
> Desdemona. They are Loves I beare to you.
> Othello. I, and for that thou dy'st.
> Desdemona. That death's unnaturall, that kils for loving.
> Alas, why gnaw you so your nether-lip?
> Some bloody passion shakes your very Frame.
> (5.2.36-44)
> 
> The "Light" is ﬁnally "put out"; in that way, but only in that way, Desdemona's
> "Rose" is "pluck'd." I ﬁnd myself wanting to ask not only Greenblatt but every
> critic who thinks Othello took Desdemona's virginity not long before, on this
> bed and these relaid sheets, how they understood Othello's wrenching words
> when he realizes what he has done and bends over what is now a corpse:
> 
> Cold, cold, my Girle?
> Even like thy Chastity.
> 
> Indeed he has never "shed her blood": that ﬁnal sniffing and snuffing has indeed
> been his only "possession of this Heavenly sight." And that culminating
> tragicomic irony, perhaps the most horrible in drama, is indeed as "grim as hell."


*Othello murdered Desdemona because he couldn't have her virginity and spill her blood, so t to take complete possession of her bloody murder was the only option.*

Here's Rymer on Othello. He took misinterpreted the play and thought that the marriage had been consummated.

*Please read the Bradshaw, McGee, and Rymer or else this thread will turn into a version of me quoting more passages from them. *


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## Taneyev

Because she called him f...negro.


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## brianwalker

Not sure if this is against the rules but will risk the infraction.

Here's the Bradshaw, it's a chapter in the middle of the book.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?vg08sgy600svq3k

Here's the McGee.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?wqzm93n2ucu8xrq

Downloading them will make it easier to read.


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## brianwalker

No English majors here?


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## quack

Isn't the answer to your initial question "Why did Othello Murder Desdemona?" simply that he was driven to jealousy by Iago and acted irrationally and hastily in a passion as anyone might do. It is not the case of reducing the story to "he was crazy" because he was poisoned, metaphorically or physically, but the precise motivation becomes irrelevant after a certain point. Any defense or explanation offered by Desdemona will be reinterpreted to serve the jealousy rather than diffuse it.

Did Desdemona's liaison with Cassio occur in Cyprus, was there time, or earlier in Venice before she wed Othello? McGee convincingly suggests it was just as likely to have been in Venice and only a few days of action actually take place on Cyprus. What all this ignores is the the fact the the liaison actually took place in Othello's jealous imagination (if we are to take Desdemona's denial as truth). All that McGee really does is suggest that a guy might be as jealous of his fiancee as his wife.

The double time theory is rather a red herring I think, it really doesn't relate to the motivation of the characters but only tries to explain the construction of the drama. Did scenes get cut which suggested a longer time on Cyprus, did Shakespeare speed up the drama with a cunning double time device, or did he just make a mistake? They are fascinating to consider but I am unconvinced they inform Othello's actions.

If Iago were to be brought to trial over this in some imagined epilogue you could be sure he would have formulated a plausible theory as to the moor's actions. A theory that would distract attention away from the character with already the most lines and place more blame on the hapless title character.


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## brianwalker

quack said:


> Isn't the answer to your initial question "Why did Othello Murder Desdemona?" simply that he was driven to jealousy by Iago and acted irrationally and hastily in a passion as anyone might do. It is not the case of reducing the story to "he was crazy" because he was poisoned, metaphorically or physically, but the precise motivation becomes irrelevant after a certain point. Any defense or explanation offered by Desdemona will be reinterpreted to serve the jealousy rather than diffuse it.


Right but the motivation driving his jealousy is important, what he thought "happened" is important. If the double-time theory is wrong then what Othello suspected of Desdemona changes, and perforce all interpretations of Othello derivative of the double-time theory is wrong.



> Did Desdemona's liaison with Cassio occur in Cyprus, was there time, or earlier in Venice before she wed Othello? McGee convincingly suggests it was just as likely to have been in Venice and only a few days of action actually take place on Cyprus. What all this ignores is the the fact the the liaison actually took place in Othello's jealous imagination (if we are to take Desdemona's denial as truth). All that McGee really does is suggest that a guy might be as jealous of his fiancee as his wife.


The actual substance of what took place in Othello's imagination is what's at stake. For example a meaningful point has been made of Hamlet's decision not to murder Claudius while Claudius was praying because Hamlet wanted Claudius to go to hell. Now, Hamlet's motivation for wanting Claudius dead has not changed, but the specific content of the motivation for his inaction is of great importance, and Hamlet's hatred for Claudius that goes beyond earthly jealousy has been a fruitful point of discussion, as Hamlet means to go beyond earthly justice and play god. Our understanding of what exactly was going on in Othello's head beyond the mere label of an murky "jealousy" is of great importance to our understanding of the play as it can help us, in addition to understanding the character of Othello, use that motivation adjudicate between alternate and mutually exclusive interpretations of the timeline of the plot i.e whether there was any "double time".



> The double time theory is rather a red herring I think, it really doesn't relate to the motivation of the characters but only tries to explain the construction of the drama. Did scenes get cut which suggested a longer time on Cyprus, did Shakespeare speed up the drama with a cunning double time device, or did he just make a mistake? They are fascinating to consider but I am unconvinced they inform Othello's actions.


If the double time theory is false that means that were was no time for Desdemona to cheat in the strict legal sense of the word, commit *extra-marital* infidelity in the modern sense of the word and there's no indication that Othello was so out of his mind that he couldn't keep track of the days, without double time we only get 36~ hours in Cyprus, and Othello murdered Desdemona not because Desdemona cheated on him but because she wasn't a virgin, hence the obsession with "blood", etc.



> If Iago were to be brought to trial over this in some imagined epilogue you could be sure he would have formulated a plausible theory as to the moor's actions. A theory that would distract attention away from the character with already the most lines and place more blame on the hapless title character.


But the Bradshaw explains why Iago was hesitant as he was, since Iago had to test if Othello "took" Desdemona the first night of Cyprus, because if Othello did then he would've knew if Desdemona was a virgin or not, and if Othello did Iago wouldn't have insinuated that Desdemona and Cassio had prior carnal relations in Venice.


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## quack

The unspoken thoughts of a character and their imagined world view is of course just as important as what they actually say and do. I am just not sure the differing interpretations of Othello's state of mind really make much different in the end. It has less of the plotting, voyeuristic disgust of Hamlet and is more about the twisted, confused rage of the manipulated Othello.

The double time theory allows for any amount of time on Cyprus for affairs and intrigues but if we forget that theory then the physical intimacy that Othello imagines between Desdemona and Cassio can only have happened in Venice. This doesn't mean that there isn't ample time for infidelity. Infidelity doesn't simply mean adultery, sex with someone other than your spouse, but it is about not being "true". This is more what plagues Othello, the thought that he doesn't really possess Desdemona but she is thinking about, and more interested in Cassio, she is cheating on Othello even if it is in those 2 busy days. 

Othello is led to believe an infidelity, is this merely breach of promise or a physical relationship? My contention, does it matter once jealousy takes hold. Assuming no double time this would have happened in Venice and would therefore affect the wedding night on Cyprus. If Desdemona was no longer a virgin the wedding cannot have been consummated, goes the logic. But all this presupposes things like Othello was able to detect her lack of maidenhood, that the physical intimacy was enough to lose it etc. Lots of off-stage speculation which is rather out of the limits text, you can create whole narratives this way but it is no longer Shakespeare.

Othello is clearly not that upset after the wedding night, no direct infidelity seems to have been discovered, if this is due to non-consummation then it adds impotence (from what ever cause) and sexual frustration to the mix of Othello's jealousy. Did the riot spoil the moment, was Desdemona too pure for Othello to spoil? The metaphorical poisoning of his mind later probably led him to read too much into just "not getting round to it" and his failure taunts him.

I don't really see much of an obsession with blood, no more than the average Shakespearian character:

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.

This might refer to sexual blood or lack of it but I think it is much more to do with trying to her most pure perfect state. Is blood the cause that he is muttering to himself but doesn't want admitted? I don't think so, I think he just means "you know why I have to do this, don't let me say it" because he really isn't sure himself. Iago's hesitancy is more about not directly asking your commanding officer if he had shagged his new wife and plotting as he went along.


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## regressivetransphobe

I'm an English major but I've no opinion on this. How 'bout that.


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## Guest

*othello*

Hi guys, i need to write an essay and i am a bit stuck on the introduction. It's an expository essay btw! 
The prompt is: Our emotions can lead to a distorted view of reality which can lead us to commit inconceivable acts. 
Any kind of help would be amazing!! 
thankyou


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## Guest

Personally, I always like to start with definitions. "Inconceivable" seems like a good word to explore.

(and as for the title of the thread - Shakespeare wrote a duff plot, and that's all there is to it.)


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## Guest

Thankyou very much


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## quack

Starting with a definition is one of the biggest clichés of student essays. Your tutor will have read hundreds of essays (and probably written a few in their time) which start "X is and important idea, but first need to understand what X is. My dictionary defines X as..."

You are better off considering what you want to say in the body of the essay first and thinking how to introduce that. If you don't have an idea for the body, there is no reason to write it from the introduction to the conclusion, write your first ideas then expand backwards and forwards from that, but be sure to proof read it once complete or it might read like jumbled garbage it you do that.

Maybe ask yourself if your reality is undistorted right now when you are in an unemotional state, perhaps consider if having a distorted view is actually beneficial to acting decisively. This is why the body of the essay is important and the introduction is merely "this is what I will talk about..." Sometimes the introduction can be almost absent you just jump straight in, or you can start with something like "I once did this inconceivable thing... Was it due to my emotional state?"

Good luck.


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