Othello’s Heroism
Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello treats the audience to considerable heroism, not only from the hero and heroine but also from unexpected characters.
Kenneth Muir, in the Introduction to William Shakespeare: Othello, explains how the consensus of the characters in the drama testify to the heroism of the general:
The testimony of all the main characters in the play is decisive. Brabantio loved him; Lodovico speaks of him as ‘the noble Moor’ ‘once so good’; Cassio, who has good cause to hate him, addresses him as ‘Dear General’ and speaks his epitaph: ‘he was great of heart’. The Duke declares that he is more fair than black. Montano is delighted to hear of Othello’s appointment as Governor. But the most significant testimony to Othello’s character comes from the one man who hates him. Iago confesses that the state ‘Cannot with safety cast him’ because ‘Another of his fathom they have none’. (29)
A character’s attitude toward the most fearful foe – death itself – is unquestionably a criterion for judging a heroic type from a non-heroic type. Helen Gardner in “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune” considers Iago’s wife Emilia to be a true hero of the play because of her fearless outlook on death itself:
Emilia’s silence while her mistress lived is fully explicable in terms of her character. She shares with her husband the generalizing trick and is well used to domestic scenes. The jealous, she knows,
are not ever jealous for the cause
But jealous for they are jealous.
If it was not the handkerchief it would be something else. Why disobey her husband and risk his fury? It would not do any good. This is what men are like. But Desdemona dead sweeps away all such generalities and all caution. At this sight, Emilia though ‘the world is a huge thing’ finds that there is a thing she will not do for it. By her heroic disregard for death she gives the only ‘proof’ there can be of Desdemona’s innocence: the testimony of faith. (145)
At the outset of the play Iago persuades the rejected suitor of Desdemona, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two awaken the senator with loud shouts about his daughter’s elopement with Othello.
Perceptions of the natural world have fluctuated throughout humanity’s short time on this earth, going in and out of style as societies and technologies have grown and died. As is the the very nature of literature itself, literature and its authors have managed to capture these shifting views, expressed and illustrated by the art of written word. Naturally, the literature chosen for us to read based on this fluid theme of nature encompasses an array of perspectives. One of these views is that nature is sublime and above all else, a reflection of all that which is perfection. Another is that nature is cold, uncaring, and indifferent to the vanities of humanity.
...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.
Shakespeare's Othello is not simply a play which embodies the conflict between insider and outsider. The paradigm of otherness presented in this play is more complicated than the conclusion, "Othello is different; therefore, he is bad." Othello's character is to be revered. He is a champion among warriors; an advisor among councilmen; a Moor among Venetians. Yes, Othello is a Moor, but within the initial configuration of the play, this fact is almost irrelevant. His difference is not constructed as “otherness.” Othello, by his nature, is not an “otherized” character. Besides being the dark-skinned Moor, Othello varies in no real way from the other characters in the play. Further, Othello and Iago can be seen as two sides of the same destructive coin. With Iago as a foil and subversive adversary, Othello is not faulted for the indiscretions he commits. It is the invention and projection of otherness by various characters in the play, especially Iago, which set the stage for the tragedy of dissimilarity which is to ensue.
Respectively, Some feminists call Emilia’s Speech a “woman’s liberation” in a sense it can be with her questioning her role in society, but Shakespeare only focuses on the use of Emilia’s voice when men are not around. When Iago forced her to steal the handkerchief, she was willingly able to do so as she wanted to please his “fantasy.” However now, her mistreatment from Iago has brought her to think radically. Alongside this, Iago accuses Emilia of having an affair [“wife for a wife”] but there is no evidence to suffice this, as although Emilia speaks radically about the separation of genders. Her actions arguably do not lead her to challenge her morality, this is evident when Emilia states, ‘Heavenly light’ indicating that she wants to brea...
Aristotle continued to express a tragedy arouses both pity and fear, pity for the doomed hero and fear for all humans who are subject to the same forces and weakness. It would not be difficult to discover that Othello demonstrate weakness and fear in the play, and Shak...
Despite the negative foregrounding of Othello’s character by Iago, our first impressions of Othello in Act 1 are of a noble and well-spoken man, his nobility is conveyed through his speech ‘most potent grave and reverend signiors’(1.3.76) to his future father-in-law Brabantio of Othello’s love for his daughter Desdemona in Act 1 Scene 3. This is a very different character to what we expect from Iago’s preparation for the introduction of Othello. Where we are expecting an angry and possibly violent character, we instead are met with something completely surprising, a quiet and calm man who dismisses Roderigo’s insult and even avoids the prospect of a conflict.
Of Shakespeare’s five greatest tragedies, Othello is by far the most passionate and gripping. It is a tale of love, deception, evil, honesty, and virtue. Othello himself is set apart from other Shakespearean tragic heroes by the absolute feeling of affection the audience feels for him even unto the very end of the play. Any discerning reader painfully recognizes the virtue and goodness of Othello throughout the entire play, in contrast to the general degeneration of character so typical of a tragic hero. It is this complete pity that makes the death of Othello so tragic as the audience lends their full hopeful support until the inevitable and unavoidable fall. The evil side of Othello’s tragic flaw came from without, in the form of Iago. The internal flaw exists only in his heartrendingly unshakable goodness and honor.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
One might think of a tragedy being a terrible and destructible event in one’s life that causes great pain and may contain great loss. One particular play written by William Shakespeare – one of the most well known poets in history, happens to be a tragedy-filled story. Othello, the Moor of Venice, set during the captivating renaissance era portrays a character named Othello who reveals characteristics of a tragic hero. The brilliant philosopher Aristotle from the fourth century B.C. developed his own definition and idea of what a tragic hero is. Eric Engle, author of “Aristotle, Law and Justice: The Tragic Hero,” said, Due to Aristotle’s influence, his tragic flaw has distorted western thought ever since its conception” (Engle). “The enquiry of whether Othello is a true tragic hero is debatable. Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero was a protagonist who is socially superior to others, but then has a downfall due to a “tragic flaw,” typically caused by the character’s solitary weakness. Due to Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero, Othello possesses the qualities from his definition that fulfill the role of being a tragic hero.
Nature’s beauty can be seen all around us and has been and will always be there for us to appreciate; yet the way we experience and interpret nature is ever changing. The Romantic Era was a literary movement that gave a new attitude towards nature that was unique and spiritual. The Romantic movement, beginning around 1798, and carrying on well into the mid 1800s, expanded into almost every corner of Europe, into the United States, and Latin America. The ideology of the romantic era, of being completely humanistic, was the opposite of the new ideas of logic and reason of the Enlightenment.
When the Industrial Revolution started, Wordsworth was appalled by the idea of factories and how workers were hired to work such long hours, with hardly any pay for all of their hard work. During the Industrial Revolution there were many factories being built up, these took away most of the open countryside that everyone had so enjoyed. So like most romantic poets of his time Wordsworth decided to revolt against the Industrial Revolution and wrote many pieces about nature to show his feelings of opposition to the revolution. Wordsworth always thought of himself as a humanist writer, so it just made sense that his poems written during the industrial revolution were completed about nature du...
The Enlightenment was a period of increased literacy and public interest in literature and arts that promoted learning through reason and logic (134). Romantic wr...
There are often two sides to everything: chocolate and vanilla, water and fire, woman and man, innocence and experience. The presence of two opposing items allows for harmony and balance in the world. Without water, fire cannot be put out and without woman there can be no man. William Blake’s poetry collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience draws parallels between poems of “innocence” and poems of “experience”. His poem The Lamb is mirrored by his poem The Tyger. Although Blake’s poem The Tyger revolved around the idea of a ferocious mammal, its illustration of a sheepish tiger complicates and alters Blake’s message in the poem by suggesting that good and evil simultaneously exist.
Many poets are inspired by the impressive persona that exists in nature to influence their style of poetry. The awesome power of nature can bring about thought and provoke certain feelings the poet has towards the natural surroundings.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.