Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How does shakespeare explore the themes of jealousy and love in othello
Analysis of Othello by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's use of dramatic tragedy in Othello
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
William Shakespeare’s Othello is a drama enriched play filled with twisting plot turns dealing with love, pain, death and the loss of a tragic hero due to a jealous rampage. A “tragedy” is a word that brings up thoughts of death dealing with a disaster that leads to a dramatic ending of a protagonist going off the deep end towards the dark side. According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle who proposed a formal definition of a tragedy (Kennedy 1232-1233); Othello fits the basis of a tragedy dealing with murder, suicide, and jealousy.
The play is the story about a Moorish General (Othello) in the Venetian army, who has just married the daughter of a Venetian nobleman, Desdemona. Set during the Renaissance period in Venice and on the island of Cyprus, Othello is deceived by the jealous plotting of his right hand man Iago, into believing that his beloved Desdemona is cheating on him. The play takes its downturn as Othello murders his Desdemona in a fit of revenge, and then discovers how he has been deceived, filled with grief he then in turn takes his own life. According to Aristotle ...
‘Othello’ was written between 1601 and 1603. It was first performed in the Elizabethan courts during the Christmas season. The idea of a ‘perfect’ tragedy is the idea that the tragedy is faultless; it does what is expected; so makes the audience feel empathy and sympathy for the characters who suffer. There are two different types of tragedy: classical tragedy and Shakespearean tragedy. The tragic hero in this play is the main character, Othello. Othello's misfortune comes about because of his jealousy, trust, and his pride. This essay aims to look at, and compare, how Shakespeare wrote his tragedy, and how other tragedies are written. I will mainly compare ‘Othello’, for Shakespearean tragedy, and ‘Oedipus Rex’, by Sophocles, for classical tragedy.
The play, Othello is one of the most famous tragedies composed by William Shakespeare during the Renaissance period. It powerfully portrays a world where the acts of evil ultimately vanquishes fidelity, nobility and integrity. The central themes jealousy and manipulation embodies the foretold tragedies and the downfall tragedies of the characters due to one’s insecurities. Through the use of literary techniques and figurative language, Shakespeare has effectively explored the themes of jealousy and manipulation.
When many people decided to sit down and read a book or a play it is because the title or summary entices them. As the story comes to an end it is decided whether or not the person related to or understood the point of the literature. Great authors and playwrights know this and set in place concepts. Many different concepts, to catch different audiences attention and to deepen the understanding of the literature. In order to understand Shakespeare’s play Othello, it is necessary to examine the emotions of jealousy, manipulation, being consumed by something, and gender.
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The story is about Othello, who is a general in the Venetian army and is convinced by his trusted ensign, Iago that his wife is cheating on him. Eventually Othello kills his wife and when he finds out the truth he then kills himself. Most of the conflict in the play stems from Othello’s value assumption that women are not equal to men, which leads to dramatic and value irony. Othello’s relationship with Desdemona, his trust in Iago and Othello’s jealousy indicates Othello’s belief that women are not equal to men.
In the play Othello, there are many jealous and selfish characters. Each of the characters at one point or another let their jealousy take over. It seems like they all have these plots and plans on how to hurt another character in the play either physically or emotionally, as an act of selfishness, so that they can feel better about themselves. One main character who seems extremely jealous in this play is Iago. Infact, probably the most jealous. Many bad things happen because of Iago. The first bad thing that Iago did, was tell Barbantio (Desdamona's father) that Desdemona has married Othello, the Moore. Iago was mad at Othello, because Cassio had made Othello a higher position and not Iago. Iago thought that he was the one who qualified for the position as general, not Othello. Iago was jealous because of this, so he decided to tell Barbantio about Desdemona and Othello. This was bad, because Barbantio did not know yet, and something like that should have been said by his own daughter, not someone who was not part of the family. The way Iago went about telling him was also bad. He called to his house in the middle of the night. He yelled it to Barbantio from downstairs into his window in a rude manner. " quote from Othello here." He wanted Barbantio to be upset about what had happened, and most of all, he wanted Barbantio to be mad at Othello and do something bad to him.
Most readers are aware of the many famous deaths or acts of death within the Shakespearean plays. And when the main characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, indeed, the readers would categorize the play as a tragedy. The problem with any tragedy definition is that most tragic plays do not define the tragedy conditions explained or outlined by Aristotle. According to Telford (1961), a tragedy is a literary work that describes the downfall of an honorable, main character who is involved on historically or socially significant events. The main character, or tragic hero, has a tragic fault, the quality that leads to his or her own destruction. In reading Aristotle’s point of view, a tragedy play is when the main character(s) are under enormous pressure and are incapable to see the dignities in human life, which Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy is based on Oedipus the King. Shakespeare had a different view of tragedy. In fact, Shakespeare believed tragedy is when the hero is simply and solely destroyed. Golden (1984) argued the structure of Shakespearean tragedy would be that individual characters revolved around some pain and misery.
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock.The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss. Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er. Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves” (3.3.163-168). In Shakespeare’s Othello, jealousy is the common theme that becomes Othello’s undoing. Through text in the play, the audience can notice Othello slowly begin to become crazed through his speech.
Othello, a play by William Shakespeare, takes place in Venice during the invasion of the island of Cyprus by the Turks. The protagonist of the story, Othello, is a newlywed, Moorish general with a very gullible nature. The antagonist of the story is Iago, an officer under Othello who wishes to be promoted to lieutenant, but the position was given to the young and attractive Cassio. Other major characters in the play are Desdemona, Othello's wife who is accused of having an affair with Cassio. In addition, there are Roderigo, a Venetian who is deeply in love with Desdemona; and Emilia (Iago's wife) who could have prevented the death of Desdemona.
Othello is the tragedy, and, incidentally, the name of a Moor who serves as a general in the Italian military. He spends the first act of Shakespeare’s play in Venice, but is ordered shortly to Cyprus to fight the Turkish invasion. His journey isn’t officially noticeable at all in the play. One moment he’s defending himself in the Senate of Venice, the next he’s in Cyprus, taking credit for being victorious in a battle the storms fought for him against the Turks. The story unravels from there. His soon-to-be-lieutenant, Iago, whispers in his ear about his wife, Desdemona, and the unforgivable crime of adultery, throwing Othello’s orderly world to the winds of fate.
The play Othello is Shakespeare's own version of a classic Greek tragedy. A classical dramatic tragedy derives its essence from the ancient Greek plays that were often popular in Athens. These plays would typically consist of the downfall of a famous Greek character in history/legend, or the breakdown of a hero. Typically the hero is forced to struggle against overwhelming odds, and fate only that this characters downfall would be so imposing that regardless of these forces of nature and fate that destroy him, that he would rise and regain glory due to his moral victory. These tragedies would invoke terror and pity on the audience, in a sense a tragedy could be considered a form of a catharsis, literally cleansing the soul as it is performed, even though the horror typically disturbed audiences, at the same time it cleansed their soul and purified the spirit.
In Shakespeare?s play Othello, Othello himself is the tragic hero. He is an individual of high stature who is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. His destruction is essentially precipitated by his own actions, as well as by the actions of the characters surrounding him. The tragedy of Othello is not a fault of a single person, but is rather the consequence of a wide range of feelings, judgments, misjudgments, and attempts for personal justification revealed by the characters.
The Monster in Othello This essay is about William Shakespeare's Othello. It focuses on Iago's words to Othello, "O, beware, my lord, of Jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster." in act 3, scene 3 and just how important this warning was not only for Othello, but also for Roderigo and for Iago.
William Shakespeare was an actor, poet and playwriter who is known of as one of the greatest writers in the English language. His work consisted of comedies and tragic plays which portrayed situations and conflicts that are still relevant to events taking place in present time. In the play Othello, the tragedy puts focus into the fall of Othello and other characters due to jealousy. The presence of jealousy creates many conflicts involving characters and their emotional distress from the events taking place around them. These feelings of jealousy alter a characters' perception of reality, conditions them to jump to false conclusions, and makes them act irrationally in the height of their emotional conflicts.
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...
A tragedy has many definitions, but the Merriam-Webster version defines it as: “a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that excites pity or terror.” The latter part, about disastrous conclusion is true for Shakespeare’s tragedies, and Othello is no exception.