Female Perspective in Othello In William Shakespeare's tragic drama Othello, the male characters far outnumber the female ones. This may tend to cause the female point of view to be changed. Let's not let this happen – considering the same in this essay. In the essay “Wit and Witchcraft: an Approach to Othello” Robert B. Heilman discusses the involvement of Emilia, Iago's wife, in the play: Emilia's taking the handkerchief helps advance the action by contributing to Othello's deception from part of Iago, but is also relevant to his character and to Shakespeare's conception of the modes of marital devotion and marital relationship (not to mention his relationships contrast with the actions of Desdemona and Bianca and of Emilia herself later). (330)It was Emilia's gift of the decorated handkerchief to her husband that framed Desdemona for the murder. Helen Gardner in “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune” talks about Emilia's view on things: Emilia's silence while her mistress lived is fully explainable in terms of character. She shares with her husband the trick of generalizing and is used to domestic scenes. Jealous people, you know, are never jealous for the cause, but jealous because they are jealous. If it wasn't the handkerchief it would be something else. Why disobey your husband and risk his fury? It wouldn't do any good. This is how men are. But the dead Desdemona sweeps away all these generalities and all caution. At this sight, Emilia, although "the world is a huge thing", discovers that there is something she will not do about it. With his heroic contempt for death he provides the only "proof" of Desdemona's innocence: the testimony of faith. Because falsehood can be proven, innocence can only be believed. Faith, not evidence, generates faith. (145)At the beginning of the play, only the male perspective is given: Iago convinces 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 up the senator by shouting loudly about his daughter's escape with Othello. In response to the noise and Iago's vulgar descriptions of Desdemona's involvement with the general, Brabantio gets out of bed. With Roderigo's help, he assembles a search party to go find Desdemona and bring her home.