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The way Shakespeare treats the theme of love in Othello
An analysis of othello as character
Character analysis of othello
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Emotions have some control over our actions. However, there are other factors that influence what we do. In the play Othello though, emotions have way more power over the characters' actions. For example, the actions committed by characters consumed by love are greatly amplified. Another example of this is that the characters in the play that are consumed by jealousy go to far greater lengths than one normally would to quench their thirst for vengeance. The last instance that proves this is that the actions of characters overcome by despair are based solely on their hopelessness. These three points all help to show that in the play Othello, Shakespeare exaggerates how much our actions are affected by the major emotions of love, jealousy, and despair.
As explained in the last paragraph, love is one of the major emotions in Othello. In the play, the actions committed by characters consumed by love are greatly amplified. Two characters that exemplify this are Othello and Desdemona. Throughout the first two acts, some of their actions are unrealistic for a couple in love. Take this quote, for example: ?Brabantio: Raise all my kindred! Are they married, think you? / Roderigo: Truly I think they are. / Brabantio: O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!? (I:i:166-168). Othello and Desdemona are so consumed by love that they elope with no intention of telling anyone else, as evidenced by Brabantio?s reaction in the quote. They just acted according to their love without thinking of the effects of their elopement. Roderigo is also a prime example of how an emotion like love has near complete control of the characters? actions in the play. Roderigo is in love with Desdemona, and it seems that his actions are almost solely dri...
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...our physician. (I:iii:305-309)
After realizing how much Desdemona loved Othello, and how she didn?t love him, Roderigo became so despaired that he was prepared to commit suicide, but was talked out of it by Iago. This reaction by Roderigo is exaggerated by Shakespeare from the normal reaction of someone in the same situation. These points all show how the actions of characters consumed by despair or hopelessness were exaggerated in the play.
As stated throughout the essay, Shakespeare exaggerates how much our actions are affected by major emotions in the play Othello. When consumed by love, the characters? actions are amplified, when consumed by jealousy, their actions become more extreme, and when consumed by despair, their actions are exaggerated. Although emotions do have some control over our actions, they aren?t the only factor that affects what we do.
Love, what a small word for being one of the most powerful and complicated emotion someone can receive. Love grants people an experience of other emotions such as, sadness, happiness, jealousy, hatred and many more. It is because of those characteristics that love creates that make it so difficult to define the emotion in a few words. In the play, “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, defy their parents in hopes of being able to be together and live a happy life. The characters in “Romeo and Juliet” show the characteristics of love through their words and actions throughout the play. The attributes the characters illustrate throughout the play are rage, loyalty, and sorrow.
be easily manipulated and influenced by love can take a toll on the weakest and the strongest people living on earth. Manipulation fueled by love is something that is invariably unrecoverable from. Like the rest of society, Othello, a fictional and heart-struck character in the play Othello, let his heart and the people around him manipulate his mind and take advantage of his authority. Dependent on the thoughts of others, Othello is a gullible person with an emotionally unstable nature that would shatter his love for the innocent and graceful Desdemona.
Picture this- William Harold Shakespeare, the most coveted playwriter in the history of the world, sitting at his desk, perspicaciously pondering over what shall become his most prominant and delicated tragedy of yet. Of course, given what little is known about Shakespeere displays, such deepseated imagery cannot simply be accomplished without first the propriety of haste and vinction.And yet, his very own rhetorical vibe displays allows such a vague pictoration to be concieved. Throughout the whole of Othello, the great Shakespeare remarks through an astounding displays show of pronouns, allitteration, and cacophonous diction his own resentment of both the King of Italy and the poor conditions of the said novelist.
Tragedy is an intrinsically human concept; tragic heroes are damned by what they themselves do. Othello is not so much felled by the actions of Iago, but by a quality all people possess-- human frailty. Accordingly, Othello is not a victim of consequences, but an active participant in his downfall. He is not merely a vehicle for the machinations of Iago; he had free agency. Othello's deficiencies are: an insecure grasp of Venetian social values; lack of critical intelligence, self-knowledge, and faith in his wife; and finally, insecurity-- these are the qualities that lead to his own downfall.
In one of William Shakespeare’s most renowned and celebrated plays, the story of a General named Othello unravels in tragic form as he falls victim to the lies created by Iago. Once revered as a war hero and wed to the beautiful Desdemona, Othello’s life spirals downward with the untimely death of his beloved in his own hands, ultimately ending with his own demise. Love is the force behind this tragedy. Tragedy is the main driving force that brings happiness and tragedy to the characters within the play. But even as such a prominent force, it lacks clear definition. Love has a different meaning to the characters in the play. Characters like Othello, Desdemona, and Iago all have different perspectives on love, which informs their behavior in different ways.
One of the main catalysts in Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' is powerful, uncontrollable emotions; love, hate, wrath, infatuation, and outrage are all apparent in the play and have a direct impact on the tragic events that unfold. In act one, scene two, the strongest emotions conveyed are those of despair, love and sincerity. Shakespeare uses imagery, figurative language and powerful vocabulary to convey these emotions to the audience.
Nick Potter states: “Othello is a tragedy of incomprehension, not at the level of intrigue but at the deepest level of human dealings. No one in Othello comes to understand himself or anyone else.” Within Shakespeare’s Othello, no character fully understands themselves of one another. This is especially true in human dealings, where the intentions of characters and how others interpret them are often misaligned. Conflict, and eventually, tragedy arises in Othello due to the incomprehension between characters, as well as within the characters themselves. From the reader’s perspective, it is tragic to understand the reality behind all the incomprehension, since the characters are oblivious to what the readers are aware of.
The theme of reason versus emotion can be found by analyzing individual character’s actions in William Shakespeare’s Othello. However, the line between to the two decision-making mindsets is not always very apparent. Three characters – Iago, Desdemona, and Othello – will be analyzed to show that Shakespeare wanted to blur the line between reason and emotion and demonstrate that individuals do not necessarily operate with only one or the other.
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...
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.
Later, when he is speaking to the duke, Othello says, “Most humbly, therefore, bending to your state, I crave fit disposition for my wife” (I.iii.231). Once again, he continues to stay calm and nonchalant as he explains to the duke that he has done nothing in his life involving witchcraft but that Desdemona and he got married because “She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I lov'd her that she did pity them” (I.iii.167), meaning Desdemona fell in love with Othello because of the stories he told her, not be...
A.C. Bradley describes Othello as "by far the most romantic figure among Shakespeare's heroes"(Shakespearean Tragedy, 1). This is an unusual description of a man who murders his own wife. However, Othello's feelings of hate for Desdemona started as an overwhelming love for her when their relationship began. This transformation from love to hate also inflicted the characters Iago and Roderigo and like Othello their hatred resulted in the murder of innocent people. Roderigo's love for Desdemona was transformed into hate towards any man that he thought was loved by her. Iago's love for his job and his wife, Emilia changed into a destructive hatred of Cassio and Othello. As a result of their hatred Cassio, Emilia, and at the end themselves were killed. The connection between love and hate in William Shakespeare's "Othello" is the ugly feeling of jealousy that caused such transformations. Jealousy can be described as a fear of losing something or someone that is valuable (Godfrey 2). As minor as this feeling appears to be by that definition, it can take on varying degrees of damaging behavior. Othello, Roderigo, and Iago became paralyzed by jealousy. Their thoughts, actions, and behaviors were ruled by it. Jealousy caused their inability to the act rationally. They became paranoid and unable to love. This paper will examine the jealousy that caused love to turn into hate for Roderigo, Othello, and Iago.
The role of jealousy, love and betrayal play a major role in The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. The entire play is based on the human interactions of the characters as related to Othello and Desdemona. The characters’ personalities, their social status, and their relationships to each other control the story line and their fate in the play. Othello is portrayed early in the play as an outsider with animalistic characteristics by Iago and Roderigo because of jealousy. “Your heart is burst; and have lost half of your soul/Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe”.(531) Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, accuses Othello of using witch craft on his daughter. “If she in chains of magic were not bound/ Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy/ So opposite to marriage that she shunned…” (535) This point is important because Othello must defend himself not only to Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, but to the entire Venetian Senate. “And till she come, as truly as to heaven,/ I do confess the vices of my blood./ So justly to your grave ears I’ll present/ How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love, / And she in mine.” (539) Othello proves himself to be an intellectual hero early in the play. He has worked hard to gain respectability and power, but because he has a different background, is from another country, is dark-skinned and is older than Desdemona, he becomes jealous very quickly of Cassio. Cassio is from the same social class, is compatible with Desdemona and is a young handsome man. Iago has also convinced Cassio to seek favor with Desdemo...
What should be noticed in particular is that, essentially, Shakespeare invented Iago; set him down in his dramatis personae with the single epithet “a villain”; and devoted most of the play’s lines and scenes to showing in detail the cunning, malignancy, and cruelty of his nature, including the cowardice of his murder of his wife. It seems to me therefore impossible to believe, as some recent critics would have us do, that the root causes of Othello’s ruin are to be sought in some profound moral or psychological deficiency peculiar to him. (137)
In Shakespeare’s Othello the reader is shown a vicious cycle of emotions and the difficult choices for Othello, which at first he displays great ability at being a critical thinker referred to in Ruggiero’s Beyond Feelings. Yet this is a short moment for as the play progresses Othello relies more on his distinct emotions and horrid errors in reasoning while investigating for evidence that aids in his decisions and later interprets this new found evidence poorly leading to the end of Desdemona, Emilia, Roderigo’s lives and his own. Though his beliefs in superstitions also aid in his downfall from a great general of Venice toward a foolish and blind man of jealousy. The decisions Othello makes using his emotion, beliefs, and errors in reasoning