Othello: Jealousy Sexual in Nature
William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello manifests a lot of activity motivated by a variety of passions, some good and others not so. Let’s analyze what many critics consider to be the dominant passion on the part of the protagonist’s most significant actions.
A. C. Bradley, in his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, describes the dominant motivating passion in Othello:
In the second place, there is no subject more exciting than sexual jealousy rising to the pitch of passion; and there can hardly be any spectacle at once so engrossing and so painful as that of a great nature suffering the torment of this passion, and driven by it to a crime which is also a hideous blunder. [. . .] But jealousy, and especially sexual jealousy, brings with it a sense of shame and humiliation. For this reason it is generally hidden; if we perceive it we ourselves are ashamed and turn our eyes away; and when it is not hidden it commonly stirs contempt as well as pity. Nor is this all. Such jealousy as Othello’s converts human nature into chaos, and liberates the beast in man; and it does this in relation to one of the most intense and also the most ideal of human feelings. (169)
H. S. Wilson in his book of literary criticism, On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy, discusses the place of jealousy in the play:
Under the deft ministrations of Iago, we witness a remarkable transformation in him. The man of judgment, the commander “whom passion could not shake,” becomes a credulous fool, transported with jealous fury, so infatuated that while he demands evidence of Desdemona’s guilt he never sees anything save through Iago’s suggestion, so beguiled that he...
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Ferguson, Francis. “Two Worldviews Echo Each Other.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare: The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p.: n.p., 1970.
Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Jorgensen, Paul A. William Shakespeare: The Tragedies. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.
Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1957.
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.
Che Guevara attempted to have a revolution in Bolivia and Guatemala. In Mexico, he trained for his return to Cuba in 1956. The textbook also mentions how Fidel Castro formed local camps as a new revolutionary power (510). They continued to fight in urban areas. It was not until 1959 where they defeated Batista and his government. Many people were happy because Fidel Castro became the president of Cuba. The Cuban people had faith in Fidel Castro to improve the state of Cuba and benefit the people unlike Batista. The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its People state that, “In 1958 almost all Cubans agreed that a renewed Cuban nationalism would approve their future,”
His father Ernesto Guevara Lynch, an engineer, was from a family of Irish descent, and his mother, Clia dela Sena, was an Irish-Spanish descent. When Che was three his family moved to Buenos Aires. His asthma attacks had gotten so worse that the doctors advised him for a drier climate. So once again Guevara family moved, this time to Cordoba. The Guevara’s were a typical bourgeois family, and in terms of their political inclinations they were known to be liberal closer to left. During the Spanish civil war they had supported the Republicans. Ernesto followed the war very closely, as his uncle had gone to Spain as a reporter Ernesto knew all about the war. In time their financial situation worsened. Che started Dean Funes high school where he was being educated in English. In the meanwhile, he was also learning French from his mother.
“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.
The pervasive notion of woman as property, prized indeed but more as object than as person, indicates one aspect of a deep-seated sexual pathology in Venice. [. . .] Fear of women’s sexuality is omnipresent in Othello. Iago fans to flames the coals of socially induced unease in Othello, fantasizes on his own about being cuckolded by Othello and Cassio. In an ideology that can value only cloistered, desireless women, any woman who departs from this passivity will cause intense anxiety. (295)
The William Shakespeare tragedy Othello features various types of love, but none compare to the love we find between the protagonist and his wife. In this essay let us examine “love” as found in the play.
The Che Guevara of Latin America is currently more present than ever. The ideals he pursued will forever affect some people. Guevara’s fight was for the oppressed, the exploited; he was the voice of the people with no voice. His image quiets any person who tires to continue oppression or the unmeasured gain of wealth.
In 1967 deep in the Bolivian Jungle a group of Bolivian Special Forces, trained by the American Green Berets were hunting down Che Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary, who had been attempting to overthrow the government. Guevara had gone to Bolivia in the hopes of instigating a revolution among the poor Bolivian peasants but to his surprise his ideals were met with either indifference or contempt and it was one of these people that betrayed his location to the Bolivia government, and so the Special Forces were sent out to kill Guevara. They tracked him down in the middle of the jungle where he was killed, his hands cut off for identification and his body buried in an unmarked location so as not to become a martyr’s grave (1967: Che Guevara). This story, although centered around one very famous man, is just one of the few that mark Bolivia’s tumultuous history of instability and military action.
Gusfield, J. (2011). How Do We Decide What are Social Problems? Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc235ch02.html
“Honest Iago” conceals beneath the exterior of the plain soldier and blunt, practical man of the world a diabolism so intense as to defy rational explanation – it must be taken like lust or pride as simply a given part of human nature, an anti-life spirit which seeks the destruction of everything outside the self. (75)
When Fidel Castro was exiled from Cuba after a failed attack on the Moncada barracks, his actions and memorable speech History Will Absolve Me started the 26th of July Movement that Castro would eventually come back to with a new strategic plan, one that would win him the war this time. While in Mexico, the breeding grounds for attempted revolutionaries, Castro met a team of other fighters who supported his attempt, but most crucial was Che Guevara. Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a Argentinian revolutionary specialised in Guerrilla War. His importance to the revolution’s success was paramount. Castro relied on the skills and knowledge of of his comrades as fellow revolutionaries with far more experience than him. Doing so, he exploited Che’s knowledge of guerrilla fighting, and by working together as a team, Che and Guevara created a new plan that successfully used guerrilla warfare to their advantage, and on the 25th of November, 1956, lead a group of 82 supporters of the movement back to Cuba. Castro relied on guerrilla warfare because of the conditions in which the war was subject to. Coming into Cuba, Castro had little active
“The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, From Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand.” Llosa, Alvaro Vargas. The New Republic. July 11, 2005.
Jealousy is a powerful emotion that can blind oneself from identifying the truth. Shakespeare heavily emphasizes this theme throughout the drama Othello, especially through the actions of characters. In the play the heinous antagonist, Iago, uses each character’s jealousy to deceive that person and manipulate the truth. His false promises and deceitfulness bring to the demise of many of the main characters in the play, including the protagonist, Othello. Othello could not have been deceived if it were not for his powerful jealousy. Therefore, Shakespeare is telling us that jealousy is an ugly trait that can hide the truth, which in turn causes many problems between characters in the play.
unique perspectives will differ in how they view the nature of a social problem. The
A social problem has many definitions. One way to define is that is a social condition/issue which has negative effects on an individual, our social and our physical world. A social problem does not have to be experienced by every individual to be called a problem, it comes from acknowledging that the problem exists and that a particular social condition affects a greater percentage of the population. We as sociologists and psychologists need to be able to face the one-sided reality of a social condition and need to address it as a social problem.