Examine the role of jealousy, love, and/or betrayal in Othello. You may want to pick one character (Iago or Othello perhaps?) and focus on one issue.(O) 15
The role of jealousy, love and betrayal play a major role in The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. The entire play is based on the human interactions of the characters as related to Othello and Desdemona. The characters’ personalities, their social status, and their relationships to each other control the story line and their fate in the play. Othello is portrayed early in the play as an outsider with animalistic characteristics by Iago and Roderigo because of jealousy. “Your heart is burst; and have lost half of your soul/Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe”.(531) Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, accuses Othello of using witch craft on his daughter. “If she in chains of magic were not bound/ Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy/ So opposite to marriage that she shunned…” (535) This point is important because Othello must defend himself not only to Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, but to the entire Venetian Senate. “And till she come, as truly as to heaven,/ I do confess the vices of my blood./ So justly to your grave ears I’ll present/ How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love, / And she in mine.” (539) Othello proves himself to be an intellectual hero early in the play. He has worked hard to gain respectability and power, but because he has a different background, is from another country, is dark-skinned and is older than Desdemona, he becomes jealous very quickly of Cassio. Cassio is from the same social class, is compatible with Desdemona and is a young handsome man. Iago has also convinced Cassio to seek favor with Desdemo...
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...also helped Prospero twelve years earlier by supplying him with food. He had the best outlook throughout the play and for the future of his company.
“Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother found a wife
Where he himself was lost: Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves,
When no man was his own”. (662)
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Jealousy, whatever it may be driven by, can produce many different actions in a person depending on their desires. Othello craftly examines a few examples of these with highly contrasting characters driven by vastly different things. The different manifestations of jealousy in said characters can be analysed through the characters of Roderigo, Othello, and Iago, while also proving how jealousy can sometimes be a front for more cynister feelings.
Above all, at the pivotal point in the play, it is Othello, ultimately who determines the outcome of his raged jealousy. But, his anger towards Desdemona and Cassio, leaves him very little of another option, but to continue his plan. Othello demands that he will "make me to see 't” (3.3.364) “or woe upon thy life!" (3.3.366) and this expresses his emotions, such as his love for Desdemona. Furthermore, when Othello says “when I love thee not” (3.3.91) “chaos is come again" (3.3.92) , it can be seen as how Othello feels towards his insecurity due to his race. Iago uses Othello 's position of a "stranger from here and everywhere" (1.1.136-137) to exploit his insecurities; he says that "in Venice they do let God see the pranks” (3.3.202) “they dare not show their husbands" (3.3.203). As Othello is not a Venetian, he cannot defend himself from this accusation of his wife. Therefore, jealousy might be a result of the insecurity that he is feeling, but also caused by Iago who takes advantage of
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