Comparing Change In Othello And Gwen Harwood's In The Park

Change is a perpetual cycle in which human life and all of its aspects are in an inevitable state of unrest. Regardless of individual features, every person will experience change with the opportunity to either embrace or reject it as it comes, adopting the chance of new beginnings and opportunities or catastrophe. Both the play “Othello” by William Shakespeare and the related text “In the Park” by Gwen Harwood display change and the way in which it confronts us, modifying each of our facets with both positive and negative phenomenons, putting forward different sub-themes of changing self, perspective, love, and world.

External factors and forces of change can drastically affect and influence attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. This is explored

in one of the major themes in “Othello” of tragic convention. It makes evident Othello’s transformation while he shifts from a noble and loving husband into a ‘blacker devil’ as Shakespeare conveys this through the dramatic use of contrast and change of persona. The first encounter of Othello as a lover is presented through his poetic diction as he speaks of his love in such a perfect fashion - “my soul hath her content so absolute”, thus revealing his passionate love, characterising his relationship with Desdemona and making apparent to the audience the positive impact she has brought upon him. This representation is soon contrasted as Othello’s loss of control is accentuated with the “Iagoisation” of his language as his speech, once poetic and flowing, is to deteriorate and be substituted for crude and sexual references which develop repugnant imagery. Once Othello has put his complete trust in ‘honest Iago’ the audience sees past this epithet as a tension is created subsiding Othello’s claim to be untrue, revealing his weakness of arrogance and jealousy which leads to both his and his loves eventual deaths.

Change is a transformative dynamic process which can either empower us or disrupt our wellbeing and perspectives. “Othello” being a typical Shakespearean tragedy, presents the downfall of the protagonist whom once a great man with high regard for his noble qualities, diminishes to ruins due to created feelings of fear and pity. Throughout scenes 1 and 2 the language used presents Othello as humble and poetic, juxtaposed with imagery highlighting his inseparable pride, and honour . *Quote and technique*
Over reacts to iagos deception
Eventual downfall, seizures
Before he dies he recovers his dignity and comes to some realisation of his wrongs. He dies with the essential nobility he had as the play opened

In contrast to the downfall of trust, love, and character development in Shakespeare’s “Othello”, “In the Park” explores the affects of realisation and changing internal and external love.

The poem being in sonnet form, is ironic as naturally sonnets are about love and its emotions, “In the park” however, highlights the absence of love within the protagonist and portrays a certain harshness of character emotion from change that has already taken place. The beginning of the poem presents the audience with a woman seamlessly trapped by domesticity, suffocated with motherhood and the role given to it by society. Her children “whine and bicker”, draw “aimless patterns in the dirt” - the patterns symbolising the woman’s life and showing her internal and honest thoughts. Bringing attention away from the so called ‘maternal love’, the second stanza links to the first by enjambment in which a person whom was once meaningful in her life as more of a romantic love, is now nothing but ‘someone’ who gives her just a ‘casual nod’. They converse in such a clichéd manner with language of no meaning or emotion using phrases such as “how nice” and “et cetera” which puts across the façade being held, the tone making it clear to the reader she regrets not being able to avoid it as she’s clearly ashamed and embarrassed of what she has become – of how motherhood has consumed her. This external superficial appearance being upheld continues in the last stanza as they both mouth hypocritical statements – the woman’s in particular completely juxtaposing her initial thoughts about her three children in the first stanza. The man enquires about the names and age of her children in whom he evidently has no interest in, and the woman replies with “It’s so sweet…to watch them grow”, her pride leading her to give her past lover a positive impression of her life trying to hide how consumed she really feels by her role and identity loss. The resolution of the poems form, “They have eaten me

alive”, brings us back to the unexpected romantic ideals usually associated in sonnets, and along with the harsh sounding use of sibilance, her overwhelmed feelings of “too late” are exposed, revealing the poems ultimate theme of changing love and the lost human potential that comes with it.

Thus shown through the play “Othello” and the related text “In the Park”, change is Illustrated to shape our understanding in its transformative way of tragedy, consequences, and positive encouragement facilitating our development of world and self. Furthermore, showing us how change is an inevitable part of human life, shaping the meaning of both ourselves and the world around us.