Loving DesdemonaWilliam Shakespeare, in his tragic drama Othello, creates an exquisite character in the person of Desdemona. Its many virtues clearly require every Christian member of the public to give them thorough consideration. David Bevington in William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies describes the depth of this tragic heroine's virtue: We believe her [Desdemona] when she says she does not. they also know what it means to be unfaithful; the word "whore" is not in his vocabulary. She is defenseless in the face of the accusations made against her because she doesn't even understand them, she can't believe that anyone could imagine such things. Her love, both erotic and chaste, is of that transcendent wholesomeness common to many late Shakespeare heroines [. . .]. Her "preferring" Othello to her father, just as Cordelia puts her duty towards her husband before that towards her father, is not ungrateful but natural and dutiful. (221)Blanche Coles in Shakespeare's Four Giants interprets the protagonist's four very significant words of greeting to Desdemona which he utters upon landing in Cyprus: Othello's four words, "O joy of my soul", tell us that this beautiful girl Venetian brought great joy, happiness, bliss to the depths of his soul. This exquisitely beautiful love that has come to a thoughtful and serious man is indescribably impressive. For him it is heaven on earth. And all the while, almost at hand, is Iago, the embodiment of evil, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. (87)In Act 1 Scene 1, Iago persuades Desdemona's rejected suitor, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemona's father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two wake him with loud cries about his daughter's escape with Othello. In response to Iago's vulgar descriptions of Desdemona's involvement with the general, Brabantio gets out of bed and, with Roderigo's help, assembles a search party to go find Desdemona and bring her home. The father's attitude is that life without his Desdemona will be much worse than before: it is too real an evil: she is gone; and what comes of my despised time will be nothing but bitterness. (1.1) So obviously the senator has great respect for his daughter, or at least for the comforts she granted him at the beginning of the play.