SOURCE: Madelaine, Richard. “Putting out the Light: A ‘Snuff’ Variant?” In Shakespeare: Readers, Audiences, Players, edited by R. S. White, Charles Edelman, and Christopher Wortham, pp. 207-19. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Madelaine analyzes the murder of Desdemona in the context of climactic scenes of death and violence in English revenge tragedies. The critic argues that although Shakespeare made use of the dramatic conventions associated with such “snuff” scenes and anticipated audience response to his depiction of erotic violence, he modified these conventions and challenged that response by highlighting Othello's alienation and depicting Desdemona as innocent of lust.

In terms of my topic, the interesting features of the murder of Desdemona in Othello¹ are: first of all, its unremitting sensationalism; second, the eroticism in the presentation of its violence; and third, the extent to which the erotic violence is emblematized. All these features...