Love and Deceit: An Analysis of Shakespeare’s Works “Venus and Adonis” and Othello In Shakespeare’s works, Shakespeare often explores themes such as the blissfulness of love, racism, the deceitfulness nature of jealously, and the usefulness of honesty. By demonstrating these themes in his works “Venus and Adonis” and Othello, Shakespeare wants his audience to learn the difference between lust and love, and how jealousy and deceit can have fatal consequences. Throughout the poem “Venus and Adonis”, Shakespeare writes with the recurring theme of love in mind. To summarize the poem, Venus, the goddess of love, wants Adonis, a young male who encompasses more beauty than Venus, to sleep with her, and Adonis refuses his goddess’s wishes. As …show more content…
To recap the play, Othello, who is a Moor, marries Desdemona, who is a young girl from Venice, which creates conflict between Brabantio, the council, Cassio, Rodrigo, and Iago. Igao is angry at Othello for giving his promotion to Cassio, and Rodrigo and Brabantio is angry at Othello for marrying Desdemona. Iago plots a scheme to get back at Othello by using his honesty against him. This idea creates irony throughout the play, because Iago is referred to as “Honest Iago”, and he is far from honest. Dramatic irony often takes place throughout the play, when the audience is told Iago’s multiple plots to get back at Othello, and Othello has no clue that Iago is behind all the manipulation. To accomplish the manipulation, Iago plays on Othello’s jealousy to make him act out a certain way. The theme/ idea racism comes into the play to create more conflict. To accomplish his plan, Iago enrages Brabantio by taunting him that a “black ram” has sullied his daughter. Throughout the play, Othello is referred to as an outsider, a Moor, and the word “black” is used to describe his skin color, which brings the theme of racism to light. Since it is a tragedy, many of the characters die such as Desdemona, because of jealousy, and the play implies that everyone who deserves justice will receive it. The reason why students should read this play even though it explores the
Iago has been regarded as : “Shakespeare’s greatest villain”; shown by his ability to be both admired and despised for his manipulative and obsessive nature towards Othello and his relationship with Desdemona. In Act One, Iago can be seen to be admired for his work within the Venetian army and his want to warn Brabantio about the ‘evil’ Othello’s plans to ‘bewitch’ young Desdemona: “The Moor is of a free and open nature, That thinks men honest that but seem to be so....” Here, Iago is speaking within a soliloquy and is warning the audience that Othello has cruel intentions. Within the Jacobean era, the time of which the play was performed, attitudes towards black people were very negative and therefore, a white man would play the character
The William Shakespeare tragedy Othello features various types of love, but none compare to the love we find between the protagonist and his wife. In this essay let us examine “love” as found in the play.
... One day he meets a girl, who happens to be his friend’s daughter, and falls in love. She falls in love with his stories and he falls in love with her passion. One troublemaker tries to cause problems by accusing Othello of stealing his friend’s daughter using drugs and witchcraft. All this happens after Othello and Desdemona gets married. Othello is put in the position of defending his honor, and Brabanzio in the position of defending his daughter’s honor. Iago is the villain who started the nasty rumor. Brabanzio is also a man who does not believe in mixed marriages and Othello was a black man. This is a story that does not end very well. Shakespeare tackles the issues of race, lies, friendship and jealousy.
Love is often perceived as something perfect and flawless in today’s society. However, Romeo and Juliet, a play written by William Shakespeare, portrays love as a form of passionate and violent force that comes with both rewards and consequences.The tragedy focuses on two young lovers called Romeo and Juliet, whose families are intertwined in an ancient feud that disrupts the peace in Verona, Italy. For love, the two teenagers are driven to overcome obstacles they will never imagine doing, and as a result, they along other family members are forced to pay the price of their lives. Through the play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare exhibits the reality of young love through the portrayal of the Queen Mab Speech, the impulsive actions taken by both lovers, and the results caused by the powerful nature of their love.
Love is a powerful emotion, capable of turning reasonable people into fools. Out of love, ridiculous emotions arise, like jealousy and desperation. Love can shield us from the truth, narrowing a perspective to solely what the lover wants to see. Though beautiful and inspiring when requited, a love unreturned can be devastating and maddening. In his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare comically explores the flaws and suffering of lovers. Four young Athenians: Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, and Helena, are confronted by love’s challenge, one that becomes increasingly difficult with the interference of the fairy world. Through specific word choice and word order, a struggle between lovers is revealed throughout the play. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses descriptive diction to emphasize the impact love has on reality and one’s own rationality, and how society’s desperate pursuit to find love can turn even strong individuals into fools.
The potential problems of their relationship are exploited fully by Iago, who plays on Othello's fears - his insecure position in a white society with a white wife, and his strict adherence to that society's norms as regards a wife's passivity and sexual behaviour--to get him to see through listening. That is, Iago uses words to twist reality and create mental images for people, and then persuades them to accept these as true. Listening to Iago is indeed dangerous.
William Shakespeare’s Othello gains fame for its thematic conflict between appearance and reality, Iago’s motiveless malignity, and the downfall of Othello when he naively believes Desdemona’s without any substantial proof. While all these factors are important, the historical aspects of Othello are even more important because they are the foundation of the more complex concepts the play explores. The context in which the play is written has underlying distinctions between races. Race plays a huge role in Othello because it sets boundaries that cause the tragic hero’s downfall. The introduction to racism occurs when Brabnatio finds out about the marriage of Desdemon and the Moor.
By analyzing this play, we can come to understand the dangers of racial injustice. If I may take the liberty of paraphrasing: "O beware, my lord, of racial prejudice! It is the green-eyes monster, which doth damage the society it thrives in." In the character of Iago, Shakespeare demonstrates the dangers of holding racial prejudices. Othello is the victim of the pervasive social stereotypes which lead to his downfall. This play should serve as a warning of the horrid plague of racism which festers in our society.
Racial prejudice against Othello is introduced early in the play and is present throughout. Iago and Roderigo approach Brabantio with news about his daughter Desdemona. They inform Brabantio his
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a Renaissance poet and playwright who wrote and published the original versions of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, and often called England’s national poet. Several of his works became extremely well known, thoroughly studied, and enjoyed all over the world. One of Shakespeare’s most prominent plays is titled The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. In this tragedy, the concept that is discussed and portrayed through the characters is love, as they are recognized as being “in love”. The general umbrella of love encompasses various kinds of love such as romantic love, the love of a parent for a child, love of one’s country, and several others. What is common to all love is this: Your own well-being is tied up with that of someone (or something) you love… When love is not present, changes in other people’s well being do not, in general, change your own… Being ‘in love’ infatuation is an intense state that displays similar features: … and finding everyone charming and nice, and thinking they all must sense one’s happiness. At first glance it seems as though Shakespeare advocates the hasty, hormone-driven passion portrayed by the protagonists, Romeo and Juliet; however, when viewed from a more modern, North-American perspective, it seems as though Shakespeare was not in fact endorsing it, but mocking the public’s superficial perception of love. Shakespeare’s criticism of the teens’ young and hasty love is portrayed in various instances of the play, including Romeo’s shallow, flip-flop love for Rosaline then Juliet, and his fights with Juliet’s family. Also, the conseque...
In William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he strides to portray the tides of love! But even for Shakespeare, It’s quite hard to grasp the understanding of love, for there is always arising complications, that get in the way of lustful love; Throughout the play, Shakespeare, undermines the notion that true love ever existed.
Just like he had hoped, when Iago constructed the gossip associated with Cassio and Desdemona, Othello’s self-doubt began to rise and he began to ease into the place where Iago wanted him to be. Along with his apprehension about his age, he is also concerned with the color of his skin. He is a colored man who exists alongside non-colored men that occasionally spew judgmental things about his melanin. Alongside Othello’s fears, he also possess a loving personality that will not allow him to consider the words he hears twice, he automatically lets his envy overthrown his thought process. The reader finds out that Othello is right where Iago wants him when he asks him “how shall I murder him, Iago” (Act IV Scene
Othello is a piece of literature ahead of its time as Shakespeare presents "others" or Moors in a positive light as a protagonist but creates a negative stereotype of interracial marriages for centuries to follow. During the first distribution of Othello non-European people were uncommon in the UK, therefore the assumptions of people from Africa like Othello were not yet enlisted as overly inferior. The idea was merely played within the play to create stereotypical norms and invisible borders between whites and Moors. The ideas of the negatives of miscegenation in Othello expressed through the foreigner's lust/love directed at the upper-class white woman (Desdemona) created a rubric for people like Iago in real life as a reason to justify their
Shakespeare's famous drama, Othello, revolves around three things: doubt, avengement and deception. As a powerful general of the Venetian army, Othello is unstoppable, until his life is turned upside down by an envious soldier whose hatred is fueled by the fact that he was not promoted to Lieutenant. After secretly marrying his wife, Desdemona, Othello’s true strength is tested. Othello is a black Moor, allowing racism to play a factor throughout the drama. Those whom he believed were faithful are no longer, according to his trusted soldier Iago, enraging Othello.
One of the more noticeable themes that Shakespeare discusses in this play is Ethnicity. Othello is a moor that somehow managed to climb his way up the ladder to the rank of general. At this time in history, blacks were considered to be barbarians, and murderous heathens. It is a very rare thing that a black man would be able to obtain the rank of general in a predominantly Caucasian army. It caused quite a bit of jealousy among the other officers serving under Othello. This element may have fueled the fire behind Iago’s lies and hatred for Othello. Another example when the ethnicity of Othello caused a problem was when he and Desdemona were married. Desdemona’s father is furious over his daughter marrying a moor. They even end up going to an Italian court to settle this matter. Normally Othello would have been executed for his actions, but because he was needed to lead the army he was allowed to stay married to Desdemona. This decision by the courts is another element that contributed to Iago’s betrayal, because if the court had ruled against Othello, Rodrigo wouldn’t have had a reason to pay Iago to spread his lies and deception.