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 '...
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...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.
...he irreversible events that emerge out of a mini revolution in the war lead Ross into his transition as a true hero.
The Tragedy of Othello by William Shakespeare is a great work by a great author. Shakespeare was correct in titling it The Tragedy of Othello because Othello lost so much. In the literary sense, a tragedy is the downfall of a character through that character's own flaws. The way most people see a tragedy is a story where there is much suffering and loss, and a not so happy ending. No matter way one looks at it, literary or public sense, this was a correct title. The main character, Othello, brought his own downfall upon him through his flaws, caused the suffering of many people, and he himself loss very much. All of these factors pile up to equal a big tragedy.
This article provided valuable information that assisted me in the making of my essay. It helped me to form paragraphs 2 and 3, and provided enough background information of the plays being talked about for me to produce those paragraphs. For paragraph 2, i read and used information on the pages 64-70 (these pages sometimes do not work). Within those pages was the idea of the all knowing audience, and the unaware othello, creating suspense within the audience about the future event of othello's life. For paragraph 3 i read and used pages 102. On these pages was the aspect of how modern novelist elicit empathy towards their character and the way shakespeare elicited empathy from his audience to character within the play. Overall this article was extremely useful
This paper contains 237 words of teacher’s comments. What one perceives is influenced by one’s environment. The setting and commentary surrounding events changes our perception of them. Any innocent gesture can be perceived in the wrong way with enough persuading from someone else. Even if someone has total faith in another person's innocence, they can be persuaded to doubt them through the twisting of events. Once just a small amount of doubt has been planted, it influences the way everything else is seen. This occurs throughout the play, Othello. In this play, Iago influences Othello's perception of events through speeches and lies, making him doubt Desdemona's fidelity. Iago uses his talent of manipulating events to exact his revenge on Othello. Iago's twisting of events in Othello's mind leads to the downfall of Othello as planned, but because he fails to twist Emilia's perception as well, he facilitates his own eventual downfall.
In order to do this he is led on a path of multiple murder and deceit.
Othello is noble, tender, and confiding; but he has blood of the most inflammable kind. Unfortunately, Othello was naïve enough to be swayed by Iagos misplaced trustworthiness and the accusations cause the entire play to unfold. Once someone brings up a sense of all his wrong doings, he cannot be stopped by considerations of remorse of pity until Othello has extinguished all that fuels his rage and despair. Othello is described as a “Moor” by his critics (Brabantio, Iago). A “Moor” is a slang word used for the dark skinned appearance of the Muslim people from the northwest part of Africa.
In William Shakespeare's Othello violence can be found in several different ways. Violence can be expressed physically, mentally, and verbally. This tragic play shows how jealousy and envy can overpower a person's mind and lead them to wreak havoc on others. Not only does this story give many different examples of violence, it displays how mental violence can promote physical violence, and continues on in that cycle. Mental promotes physical which ultimately leads back to mental.
In the tragedy Othello, Shakespeare creates a mood that challenges the way a person sees his or her self and the world. Subjects like racism, sexism, love, hate, jealously, pride, and trickery are thoroughly developed in the play of Othello to enable the audience to view the characters and also themselves. The Shakespearean tragedy of Othello was written in a time of great racial tensions in England. According to Eldred Jones, in 1600 just three years before Othello was written, Queen Elizabeth proclaimed an Edict for the Transportation of all "negars and blackmoores" out of the country ("Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays 39). It is in this atmosphere that Shakespeare began the masterpiece of Othello, a drama about a noble black Arab general, Othello, who falls in love with and marries, Desdemona, a young white daughter of a senator. From the above knowledge one may conclude that Shakespeare wrote Othello to express that all people, of all ethnicity, are basically the same in human nature. Shakespeare borrowed the idea of Othello from an Italian love story by Giraldi Cinthio. However, Shakespeare focuses more on the differences in color and age between Othello and Desdemona than Cinthio. Shakespeare does this to escalate Othello’s isolation from the rest of Venetian society and to display Othello’s vulnerability due to his color. In the tragedy not only is Othello susceptible to weaknesses but so is every major character . The tragedy reminds humans that even one’s good nature can be taken advantage of for the worse. The drama Othello expresses, through relationships and emotional attitudes, a theme that all humans are vulnerable to destruction even if they are in positions of power and glory.
Just as men project their feelings onto others instead of explicitly stating them they do not explicitly state their insecurities either. However, their insecurities are revealed through the use of female characters. Whilst in a relationship with Miriam, Paul felt that she made him feel insecure about himself. “Why did she make him feel as if he were uncertain of himself, insecure, an indefinite thing, as if he had not sufficient sheathing to prevent the night and the space breaking into him? How he hated her! And then, what a rush of tenderness and humility!” (Lawrence, 237). Paul believes that it is Miriam that causes him to feel insecure because he thinks she holds him to a moral code. However, he continues feeling this way even after they are no longer together. Therefore, Paul’s uncertainty of himself is inherently his own fault, not Miriam’s. In this way, D.H Lawrence uses Miriam to show how Paul is not sure of
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.
Dual Nature of Characters in Othello Many of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello, are duplicitous to the extent that how. they are perceived in public is not how they behave in private. The perception of the public plays.
due to his race are vast, for example at the start of the play when
The Effectiveness of Shakespeare's Exposition of Plot, Character, Theme and Atmosphere in the First Act of Othello The action of the first scene increases the audience’s anticipation of Othello’s first appearance. The audience learn Iago’s name in the second line of the play and Roderigo’s soon afterward, but Othello is not once mentioned by his name. Rather, he is ambiguously referred to as “he” and “him.” He is also called “the Moor”, “the thick-lips” and “a Barbary horse” all names signifying that he is dark-skinned. Shakespeare’s exposition of plot is also effective, because in the very first scene there seems to be a lot of action.
Othello as a Tragic Character in William Shakespeare's Play The play Othello by William Shakespeare is about passion, treachery and revenge. Othello is a black, well-respected army general in Italy. He falls in love with the white daughter of Brabantio, a senator of Italy, called Desdemona and gets married to her without Brabantio's consent. Iago and Cassio are Othello's best friends, Iago turns out to be two-faced and evil towards Othello because he gave the job of lieutenant to Cassio when Iago thinks it should have been his.
Othello’s speech to Brabantio and the Duke in Act 1, Scene 3 is of major importance in describing Othello’s personality. This long speech, found in lines 149 to 196, shows Othello for the first time as a person with depth and less as a soldier. This speech is important to the book as a whole because it is a testimony to the strength of the love between Othello and Desdemona, which will later play a major role in the plot. It is also one of the first times that we see Othello trying to influence his audience with his words. The speech given by Othello is intended to convince Brabantio that Desdemona is with him willfully, and not by “spells and medicines bought of montebanks” (line 74).