Are Portia and Desdemona comparable?

Question

I want to know how Portia(in The Merchant of Venice) and Desdemona(in The Tragedy of Othello) can be compared and contrasted as the two women characters in Shakespeare's dramas?
Is there any similarities or differences?

Answer 1

I don't think they are very comparable at all. It would be a bit like comparing Hamlet and Petruchio. OK, they both are attractive and clever (and from Venice, or thereabouts); but the plays are completely different, their roles are different, and their characters are totally different.

Portia is shrewd, sly, aristocratic, dominant, mature, sophisticated, able to control the situation in a male-dominated society because of her wealth, intelligence, and subtlety. She chooses Bassanio almost as a gigolo, assumes the role of a male lawyer and controls the courtroom, then wins in a gambling match and confronts her husband with his disloyalty (which she has staged). She is the queen bee; Nerissa, her underling. She should be played by someone like Meryl Streep or Glenn Close.

A better comparison would be between Portia and Rosalind in As You Like It.

Desdemona is charming, sweet, tender, sensitive, sympathetic, innocent, almost naive, compliant, romantic. Though she speaks up on Othello's behalf when her father confronts them, she is unaware of Othello's jealous nature and attempts to intervene with him on Cassio's behalf, at a time when Othello is rough and angry with her, but she is, at the same time, affectionate and submissive. She is victimized by a male-dominated society, her husband, his lieutenant Iago, and the military establishment in general. She is the daughter and wife of strong, authoritarian men; Emilia is, to her, a maternal figure, a surrogate mother, but also disloyal (in stealing her handkerchief to give to her own husband Iago). Desdemona should be played by someone like the young Uma Thurman.

A somewhat better comparison would be with Ophelia in Hamlet, also a victim--of father, brother, and lover.

Answer 2

They are both clever.