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Brief analysis of OTHELLO
Iago's character analysis in othello
The drama of Shakespeare
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Recommended: Brief analysis of OTHELLO
Spinning a Treacherous Web in Othello
Like every Shakespearean tragedy there is often an untimely doom that ends the life of the "hero" or main character of the play. The main character’s doom only becomes the outcome when they are unable to better the wrongs they or others had committed. However, in this Shakespearean tragedy the person who drives the participants of this play to their doom, isn’t the main character Othello, but Iago, the motiveless character whose jealousy and rage drives him to commit crimes towards the people who believed him and considered him a trusting friend.
Iago understood human characteristics, which allowed him to get to the root of people's problems. In Othello he saw innocence, and love; in Desdemona he saw purity and kindness; and in Cassio he saw a perfectionist. Iago lacked all of these features and so in order to end the happiness of all the characters, he decided to hit them where it hurt the most. In doing so he used Desdemona as a tool, because she was the object of everyone's desire. Iago is a spider-like creature who in order to quench his hunger, entangles all of these characters into his skillfully crafted web that slowly and unknowingly drives them to their doom.
To better understand Iago’s effect on these different characters, it is important to look in to his own character. Iago’s motives are not clear, however, it is true that he despises Othello, and that he is jealous of the fact that Michael Cassio had taken over the role of lieutenant; a role that Iago wanted very badly. It is in the beginning of the play that Iago confesses to follow Othello but not be loyal to him,
I follow him to serve my turn upon him…
Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.
In following him, I follow but myself-
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ‘tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am. (1.1 43-67)
Iago is without any apparent feelings or remorse towards any of the other characters.
Many human beings contain opposite forces within him or herself; an alter ego that hides behind one’s polite facade. In the novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are in fact a single character. It is not until towards the end of the novel that the two personas seem nothing alike. Dr. Jekyll is the well-established, moral, doctor and Mr. Hyde is a nefarious weird looking man whose appearance looks so strange that it is hard to explain. Their relationship involves a complicated dilemma. While it is true dr. Jekyll appears to us as a moral and courteous man, he does not exemplify honor and integrity the way that Hyde exemplifies evil. Although Jekyll engages in in the experiment to attempt to isolate the good
Northrop Frye once said, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” Othello is the pillar of tragic heros, first playing the part of a loving husband with a beautiful wife, then being manipulated into believing his wife was cheating on him and killing her. Throughout the play, he played the part of the protagonist, everyone hoping he would figure out Iago was lying to him. Othello being the protagonist made the fact he was also a villain bittersweet. His apparent love for his wife Desdemona, his ‘just’ reasoning for killing her, and Iago’s deserving end all contribute to the tragic work as a whole.
Jekyll says, “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two” (Stevenson 83). Jekyll believes he will get pleasure from both alters without any backlash; however, Hyde soon becomes more powerful than his ‘good’ alter and ultimately leads Dr. Jekyll to his doom (Singh). Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to coexistent to make up a “normal” individual (Singh). Seeing things as Jekyll did, “Humans are half-good, half-evil” Stevenson separated the two, making one pure good (Jekyll) and one pure evil, as Jekyll says, “Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil” (Stevenson 88). After all, good and evil are independent objects, people; they possess distinctive psychological characteristics and consistently fight with each
In the book The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde one of the main focuses is how there are two different sides of man, the “good” side which Dr. Jekyll represents and the “bad” side which Mr.Hyde represents. The moral of the story is that man needs both “good” and “bad” for the two put together and how man deals with it is how man is defined. In the story Jekyll makes a drug that separates the “good” and “bad” in man and it will furthermore become true that man needs both “good” and “bad” to be defined. After reading The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and exploring the “ good” and “bad” sides of man it will become evident that there are two sides of man.
When the concept of murder is brought, it is thought of weapons being used for reasons such as crime and for justice. Nevertheless, what if a particular attribute exhibited by someone ends up being the root cause of somebody’s death? No doubt, Iago is a devious character who would get away with about anything to fulfill his obligation into acquiring a higher position of authority. The overall concept of the play can be perplexing to the reader when it comes to who is to blame for the death of several major characters – Othello’s inability to control his emotions or take other people’s feelings into account leads to death of his beloved with and himself; none of this wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for Iago who made this plan in the first place.
There exists a kind of person who can be called by no other name than by “Magnificent Bastard”. They are masters of deception, bloody brilliant, unstoppable in achieving their goals even when it means grinding others into the dust, and yet they have such a flair, such a charming disposition, that they are often admired by even those who are wronged by them. Iago in Shakespeare’s play Othello is one such character. The audience may love or hate him, but either way they must admit that he commands the spot-light. In spite of this, the reason why Iago acts as he does is shrouded in mystery. Even when directly speaking to the audience about his motivations, Iago is not always truthful. In reality, while Iago derives great pleasure from manipulating others, his driving motivation throughout the entire play is his own jealousy; from being unrecognized for his greatness, to an impossible love for Desdemona, and of the virtuous characters all around him.
In the story of Othello we see how the actions of one man go on to ruin the lives of multiple people. The villain Iago single-handedly creates the tragedy of Othello through his puppeteer like control of the other characters in the play. Iago captivates the audience as his plan progresses. Readers are anxious to know what will happen next in the play. What makes Iago so fascinating is his mysteriousness as a character, his fully devious ways, and how magnificently clever he is in organizing the demise of Othello.
Characters in the play fail to comprehend Iago’s true nature until it is too late. Those interacting with Iago fall into the belief that Iago is loyal to his superiors, when Iago is actually focused on bringing them (Cassio and Othello) down. Iago constructs a false impression of his loyalty to Othello through ...
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” depicted many aspects of psychoanalytical and biographical references in which moral choice played a role in the transformation between Jekyll into Hyde a cycle of identity disorder. “Stevenson thoughts at this time was the duality of man 's nature and alternation of good and evil” (77) states Graham Balfour representing how Jekyll morally distinguishes what his foil persona commits as wrong, but evil wins the battle conquering the goodness within himself. The image of god and satan correlate into their human characteristics one presents the righteousness of good will meanwhile evil is exposed inconsistently. In the end Hyde 's evil persona lies beneath Jekyll knowing that in an attempt of suicide Hyde will get destroyed. Ironically Jekyll 's given up his life, but Hyde regains dominance so that his body would be found. The historical victorian era in which the novels was written reveals how immoral life was lived in reality a way in which Stevenson used the protagonists Jekyll and Hyde “Hide” to fit his
Stevenson explains to the reader that humans have lots of different sides to each other and not just one. The final chapter of the novel, ‘Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement Of The Case’ explores the ways in which the author presents Victorian attitudes to the nature of humans. He also explains how duplicitous humans are, which means how people often have two separate approaches to their life. The duality of man means the two sides of the person’s mind and is most apparent in, as the title suggests, the characters ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. The separation of Jekyll into two beings, Jekyll and Hyde, is an analogy for humankind’s conflicting forces of good and evil. These characters bring to life the inner struggle between the two powers of the soul. Dr. Jekyll asserts that ‘man is not truly one, but truly two,’ within the book to illustrate the theme of the novel and to help describe Mr. Hyde to more rational people such as Mr. Utterson.
degrading. However, Mr. Utterson is used to show the benevolent nature of man instead of the
The Tragedy of Othello William Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, from the sixteenth century is an excellent example of Renaissance humanism. “A poet of unparalleled genius, Shakespeare emerged during the golden age of England under the rule of Elizabeth I.”(Fiero 3:98) He produced comedies, tragedies, romances and histories. According to Webster’s pocket dictionary, a tragedy is defined as a form of drama in which the protagonist comes to a disaster, as through a flaw in character, and in which the ending is usually marked by pity or sorrow. I would like to concentrate on the character Iago and the theme of deceit.
Iago is a very strategic and clever person, and he despises Othello because Othello appointed Cassio as a lieutenant over Iago. He plans to ruin Othello’s life by ruining his relationship with Desdemona. He starts off by telling Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, of Othello and Desdemona’s secret marriage. Iago goes to
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.
There is duality to human nature and character flaws in everyone that we meet in life. “All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe” by Marguerite Young is one of my favorite quotes that describes the characters so well. There are flaws to every creature and from all of our flaws we make up the whole universe. The characters in the novella aren’t perfect either. Mr. Utterson was a longtime friend of Dr. Jekyll and he was someone who never showed emotions, even though he was a trustworthy and honorable man. He was portrayed, as the ideal Victorian man who was a God-fearing man, wasn’t a man who enjoyed parties so much, reserved in his thoughts. Mr. Utterson was a high honored man on one side, but on the other side he has very strange walks with Enfield. Even the most ideal and “perfect” man has character flaws.