ABSTRACT
Perhaps as much as his race, Othello’s age inserts him into a fi eld of controversy because it suggests the possibility that he is not sexually fi t for the task of being Desdemona’s husband. The old critical debate over when the marriage is consummated can be redrawn in terms of Othello’s anxiety about his own sexual powers as well as his anxiety lest in opening up Desdemona’s sexuality he may induce her to prefer not just a man of fairer skin and more conventional breeding than Othello, but someone younger and more sexually fi t. Is Othello so gullible to the tricks that Iago plays, seducing him from faith to jealous rage, because unconsciously he wants the marriage to fail? Perhaps he ultimately internalizes the many voices that aver that he is unworthy of the match with Desdemona.
