Friendship In Desdemona By Paula Vogel

Identifying envy in friendships between women can be tricky, especially when the so called friends tend to fake their actions and intentions quite well in order to gain what they initially desire. The “Friendship” between the ladies in Desdemona: a play about a handkerchief by Paula Vogel should not even be called that, as it is something that for all intents and purposes non-existent. Through various distinctive ways, the women proved over and over that there is not even a genuine care between them. When envy exists between women, a true friendship can never even be born. The ladies, Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca were longing for each other’s lives, men and things to the point that they were literally willing to risk anything, including committing …show more content…
Vogel focused on the hopes of each woman, as they struggled to survive in a man’s world. A world full of cruelty, suspicion and blind envy, in what can only end in tragedy. The play solely offers, with clear and extreme precision, the various roles of the three, very different, women wanted to play, needed to fulfill, or often were forced to pretend. The three women were simply fake, in every way. Every action and every word made by the ladies in Vogel’s play had some sort of ulterior motives behind them. The women sure knew how to throw words and punches to push each other’s buttons. "There’s no such thin' as friendship between women" (Emilia-245) Using each other one way or the other for some benefit, the ladies did not only gossip maliciously about each other behind the other women’s back, but they also at some point had or wanted to sleep with someone other than their significant other. As the plot intensifies though, we begin to wonder what Vogel’s message is. Where will this tension and envy lead? Will the ladies be able to escape death? Would Vogel change Shakespeare’s tragic …show more content…
Unlike Shakespeare’s Desdemona, who is sweet, innocent, stupid and simply dull, Vogel’s Desdemona is mean, spoiled, promiscuous and most importantly unfaithful. Vogel’s Desdemona is a bit of a thrill-seeker, as she befriended Bianca and substituted her Tuesday night’s costumers under the sheets of darkness to experience the world through the seeds of men. Desdemona rebels in the only way that she can through her body, just like Bianca. She feels liberated by her sexual adventures, as though she can achieve her dreams of travel and adventure through sex with men who have traveled and fought. “They spill their seed into me, Emilia—seed from a thousand lands, passed down through generations of ancestors, with genealogies that cover the surface of the globe. And I simply lie still there in the darkness, taking them all into me; I close my eyes and in the dark of my mind—oh, how I travel!”