William Shakespeare’s Female Characters: Desdemona and Cordelia Eyed through the Lens of Indian Ethos

Abstract

William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) major tragic plays during Indian imperialism and postcolonial interventions displayed four-fold aspects of human life: social, ethical, political, and spiritual. In the Indian response to Shakespeare, his plays underwent remarkable favorable transformations due to various similarities between the Indian dramatic tradition and Elizabethan drama, which mediated the reception of the geographical, historical, ethnic, and ideological differences between the two cultures, countries, and contexts. Shakespeare's reception was favorable due to various similarities between the Indian dramatic tradition and Elizabethan drama. Indian epic female characters and Shakespearean well-known female characters are seated together at the literary reception table of feministic themes, tone, attitudes, conditions, cultural and self-identity perspectives, and presentation equally under the umbrella of male hegemony. These female characters were good and evil, virtuous and wicked, heroines and villains. In this article, an attempt has been made to shed light on two major female characters in the tragedies of Shakespeare: Cordelia in King Lear and Desdemona in Othello. Both the female characters were pure, innocent, and noble-hearted, and they were full of the qualities and characteristics of the tinge and tincture of Indian ethos. However, before we try to eye these characters through the lens of Indian ethos, some light, in general, has been thrown on Shakespeare’s works and his female characters.