Copious Imagery within the Tragedy Othello
In the Bard of Avon’s tragic drama Othello there resides imagery of all types, sizes and shapes. Let us look at the playwright’s offering in this area.
In the essay “Wit and Witchcraft: an Approach to Othello” Robert B. Heilman discusses the significance of imagery within this play:
Reiterative language is particularly prone to acquire a continuity of its own and to become “an independent part of the plot” whose effect we can attempt to gauge. It may create “mood” or “atmosphere”: the pervasiveness of images of injury, pain, and torture in Othello has a very strong impact that is not wholly determined by who uses the images. But most of all the “system of imagery” introduces thoughts, ideas, themes – elements of the meaning that is the author’s final organization of all his materials. (333)
The vulgar imagery of the ancient dominate the opening of the play. Francis Ferguson in “Two Worldviews Echo Each Other” describes the types of imagery used by the antagonist when he “slips his mask aside” while awakening Brabantio:
Iago is letting loose the wicked passion inside him, as he does from time to time throughout the play, when he slips his mask aside. At such moments he always resorts to this imagery of money-bags, treachery, and animal lust and violence. So he expresses his own faithless, envious spirit, and, by the same token, his vision of the populous city of Venice – Iago’s “world,” as it has been called. . . .(132)
Standing outside the senator’s home late at night, Iago uses imagery within a lie to arouse the occupant: “ Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves! / Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!” When the senator appears at the window, the ancient continues with coarse imagery of animal lust: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is topping your white ewe,” and “you'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.” Brabantio, judging from Iago’s language, rightfully concludes that the latter is a “profane wretch” and a “villain.”
When Iago returns to the Moor, he resorts to violence in his description of the senator, saying that “nine or ten times / I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.
Huck witnesses the depravity of human nature when experiences the feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. After Huck and Jim get split up on the Mississippi River, Huck spends some time living on the Grangerford’s estate. He befriends a Grangerford named Buck, and the two of them spend a lot of time together. Buck explains that the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons have been feuding for years, although no one quite remember why. Huck does not understand the point of a feud. Buck goes on and explains, “A feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in -- and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time” (Twain 107). Huck cannot comprehend the point of a feud, especially since in this case Buck cannot pinpoint the cause of the feud. Later, Buck died from gunshots from the guns of the Shepherdsons. Huck is devastat...
Jim's character traits are easy to over look because of his seeming ignorance, but in reality Jim possessed some qualities that created a positive influence on Huck. He began by demonstrating to Huck how friends teach friends. His honest compassion also eventually causes Huck to resist the ideas society has placed upon him, and see Jim as an equal-- rather than property that can be owned. Huck knew he was going against society, and of the consequences that he could receive for freeing a slave. "It would get all around, that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again, I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame", (269-270). Huck then claims, "All right, then, I'll go to hell…"(272) This shows that Huck was willing to put himself on the line for a slave, because he ceased to view Jim as property and recognized him as a friend. At the beginning of the story Huck would have never done this, but after the many adventures that occur, Jims unconditional love for Huck pierces the shell society placed ar...
Many words the book contains are full of vivid disgust towards black slaves. Every single line talks about how white people despise and refuse to accept the black race. Answering Aunt Sally's question about whether or not anyone is hurt Huck answers, "no mum, just killed a nigger."(Twain 213) This is the one and only acceptable way to talk about black people in the "white" society. In addition to this, not only is the black people treated differently from the white, they are also considered to be one's property. "He is the only property I have," (Twain 122) Huck is perforce to say in order to save Jim. This is the only way to get through without the essence of suspicions. Though Huck shows racism in public as society teaches him, deep inside he understands that Jim is a great person. Through the eyes of Huck Finn, Mark Twain shows that there is more to people then looks and race, showing the importance of beliefs and character.
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
In order for Huck to alienate himself from society and reveal the hypocrisy of society’s values. Twain uses the morals of the widow Douglas to insure Huck’s understanding of how contradicting these morals really are. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me” (Twain 1). It’s shown from this quote that the widow Douglas most truly believed that her moral values where the correct and civilized morals. But it wasn’t only the the widow Douglas who taught Huck, her sister Mrs. Watson taught Huck the ideas of Christianity and read stories from the Bible to him as well. They both tried to insure that Huck turn in to the what they believed was the civilized and religiously correct human being.
In the written text, Shakespeare emphasis's the hidden reality through the use of dramatic techniques of imagery and symbolism. There is a constant use of light and dark imagery which is used by the protagonist , MAC...
With its entangled double plots and eloquent use of words, Much Ado About Nothing is a story that has the ability to entertain the masses both young and old. Shakespeare’s use of figurative language along with situation creates such vivid imagery for which carries the drama from beginning to end. For example, when we look at Act 1 Scene 1 of the play ...
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.
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.
The Novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is one of the central works of American literature. It is about the life of a low level white society boy, named Huck who finds himself running into his drunk abusive father who comes back to town and takes him away. When Huck escapes, he comes across a runaway slave, named Jim. They do not feel comfortable at first being from different levels in society, but once they get out of numerous situations together, such as loosing two con men on river or freeing Jim after he has been sold, it loosens the tension between them and they become good friends to the point where Huck helps Jim escape to the north to be free. This friendship consisted of loyalty and trust. They relied on one an another, and knew that the other would come through to get themselves out of sticky circumstances where it could be the matter of life or death. This novel traces the moral education of a young boy whose better impulses overcome both self interest and the negative forces of his culture. Mark Twain uses characterization, setting, and irony to emphasize his theme that when a person believes something to be right and just, he should do what his morals believe rather than what the normal society accepts as true.
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987. (page 23-37)
Snyder, Susan. "Beyond the Comedy: Othello" Modern Critical Interpretations, Othello Ed. Harold Bloom, Pub. Chelsea House New Haven CT 1987.
Then Huck’s Pap returns and takes all that away. He takes Huck far away to an old shack far from civilization. Huck’s pap is verbally and physically abusive, sometimes keeping Huck locked up for days. Huck can no longer take his abuse and stages his own death. Huck escapes to the River and heads for Jackson Isla...
Jones, Eldred. "Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello. Ed. Anthony G. Barthelemy Pub. Macmillan New York, NY 1994.
In this fragment, Iago uses resources like the animalización and the use of erotic language to put of relevance the savagery and the monstrous thing in Othello. These words provoked