Shakespeare's Portrayal of Human Frailty in the Trial Scenes of Othello

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Shakespeare's Portrayal of Human Frailty in the Trial Scenes of Othello

Shakespeare wrote many tragic plays and Othello is a particular play

that has many human attributes, some of a positive nature, such as

love and nobility, others with a more negative context, like the envy

of Othello and the prejudices of Brabantio. Using effective uses of

dramatic irony, imagery and language Shakespeare explores the nature

of jealousy, prejudice and evil. After all, the great noble solider is

to a 'green eyed' murderer, whilst the story of Eden is re-taught, and

still the 'serpent' manipulates purity, resulting is the destruction

of paradise.

Othello is set during a war between Venice and Turkey in the latter

part of the sixteenth century. The basics of Shakespeare's plot,

Moorish general is deceived by his ensign into believing his wife is

unfaithful, comes from an Italian prose tale written in 1565. However,

Shakespeare made some changes. In Othello the action is compressed

into a space of a few days and made the ensign, a minor villain into

the arch-villain, Iago.

Taking into account the era of the plays performance, the audience had

very specific views of others. In the seventeenth century, a black man

was always noticed to be a 'barbarian' and only interested in alcohol,

violence and sex. Even though, these prejudices may be false, the

audience of the Elizabethan Theatre believed the prejudice remarks

made by Iago, Roderigo and Brabantio. An image of Othello is created

in the minds of the audience of an 'old black ram' with 'thick lips'

with a main in interest in life is 'tupping' the fair and gentle

ladies of Venice. However, this '...

... middle of paper ...

...d almost the lowest form of life.

So he emphasizes this in his anger to explain the situation he is

faced with. All this is down to the extended metaphor which runs

throughout, that of light and dark, pure and evil, heaven and hell.

Furthermore, the idea of 'Eden', as Iago replays the role of the

'serpent', whilst 'poisoning' the ear of Othello.

When Othello killed 'pure' Desdemona he was not in a normal state of

mind, he was acting to jealousy which caused many other human emotions

in the play. The nature of anger caused him to become irritable and

aggressive, also hatred, which did not allow him to be considerate,

and as a result he suffered from human frailties. Othello's

gullibility allowed him to believe the false accusations made by the

manipulative Iago; therefore he couldn't distinguish fact from

fiction.

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