Othello's Tragic Flaw
The extravagant language and literary techniques used in Shakespeare's Othello enhance the settings, characters, and themes. Othello, an intricate tragedy about good versus evil, loyalty, love, sexual jealousy, and appearance versus reality, is told in a first person point of view. The play is entitled Othello and the plot and action encompasses him, thus supporting his position of protagonist.
The play takes place during the Renaissance in Venice, Italy and in Cyprus over three days. The opening scene of Othello is very dramatic as it begins in the middle of a disagreement or argument between two of the characters, Iago and Roderigo. Iago is a corrupt individualist who
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Therefore the term ‘Moor’ used for Othello throughout the play may have or not shocked the audience, as it is a racist remark. One of Othello’s focal flaws would be his colour. One could argue is Othello is a racist play? This play does conform to the stereotypical image of a Moor; the play opens with racist language, ‘Moorship’, ‘the thick lip’, ‘Old black ram’. At the start of the play when he is seen heroic and noble, he is seen as being ‘more fair than black’, however when he kills Desdemona he is the ‘blackest devil’. On the other hand Shakespeare has dealt with the issues of race, and has written about it, he challenges stereotypical labels such as ‘Moor’ and exposes racism. However Othello clearly feels himself to be an outsider, “your great business”. “Your” implies that he does not feel himself to be part of Venice, he does not say “we”. Iago expects this feeling Othello has very cleverly by appearing as a world-weary man, knowledgeable of Venice and Venetian women.
Othello is a prestigious character, ‘Valiant Othello’ and is respected by the senators for his valiant service in war.
Othello seems to have a good deal of ‘self knowledge’. This is revealed through his calm assurance when faced with Brabantio’s fury as he had “stolen” Desdemona from him. Othello Marries Desdemona, a Venetian white woman, who is also the Senator
Shakespeare's play, “Othello, the Moor of Venice,” is a powerful example of a tragedy and it’s main character, Othello, is an excellent illustration of what Aristotle constitutes as a tragic hero. The play imitates life through basic human emotions such as jealousy and rage. In addition, Othello is far from being a perfect character - another quality that meets Aristotle's requirements. Othello also matches Aristotle's ideas of tragic hero because our Othello realizes the error of his ways, causing us to feel sympathy for him. If we carefully examine the third scene in the third act, we can see how Othello fits into Aristotle's definition of tragic hero. This passage reveals how much Othello has deteriorated as far as his ability to reason
Shakespeare is prominent in his use of recurring themes throughout his works, particularly those of love, death, and betrayal. All these themes are present in Othello. Most dominant, however, are manipulation and jealousy. Jealousy runs the characters’ lives in Othello from the beginning of the play, when Roderigo is jealous of Othello because he wishes to be with Desdemona, and to the end of the play, when Othello is furious with jealousy because he believes Cassio and Desdemona have been engaging in an affair, but manipulation the prominent action that fuels the jealousy within Othello. Some characters’ jealousy is fashioned by other characters. Iago is involved in much of this, creating lies and implementing confusing situations.
knows it as one of the characters is soon to depart out of the play,
Othello has been described as one of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays because the play focuses on its themes of good and evil, military, politics, love and marriage, religion, racial prejudice, gender conflict, and sexuality; but the controversy and debate surrounding Othello is “Why is Othello a qualification for a tragedy?”
The tragedy of Othello, written by William Shakespeare, presents the main character Othello, as a respectable, honorable, and dignified man, but because of his insecurities and good nature, he is easily taken advantage of and manipulated by his peers and alleged friends. The dynamic of Othello’s character significantly changes throughout the play. The contrast is most pronounced from the beginning of the play to its conclusion, switching from being calm and peaceful to acts of uncontrolled venomous rage. Othello’s motivation in the play appears to be his love and concern for his wife Desdemona, which ironically, ends up being his downfall in the end.
In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello is the tragic hero. He is a character of high stature who is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. His destruction is essentially precipitated by his own actions, as well as by the actions of the characters surrounding him. The tragedy of Othello is not a fault of a single villain, but is rather a consequence of a wide range of feelings, judgments and misjudgments, and attempts for personal justification exhibited by the characters. Othello is first shown as a hero of war and a man of great pride and courage. As the play continues, his character begins to deteriorate and become less noble. Chronologically through the play, Othello’s character
Othello is a tragic hero because of his greatnesses and his weaknesses. He is a noble man who possesses all the qualities of a military leader, which he is. He has control over himself and shows courage as well as dignity. Just as Othello is a virtuous man there are some flaws within him, these flaws complete him ff as a tragic hero. Othello is often blinded by trust and can not see a person for who they really are. He trusts the people around him even when they mean to afflict harm upon him. Through this, it can be seen why Othello is one of the most tragic hero out of all the characters from Shakespeare’s many plays.
The extent of which Othello is a tragic hero has been open to much debate; the basis on which he is judged falls to Aristotle’s established view of the crucial elements that distinguish whether a person is truly tragic. According to Aristotle, a tragic protagonist is a nobleman or person from high status, who contributes to his own demise and illustrates a flaw or weakness in judgment. The tragic protagonist must make a fall from a high state of being to a low state or death. The tragic hero’s downfall, said Aristotle, was brought upon by some error of judgement. Aristotle’s theory is not the final word on tragedy, however it can support in pinpointing the pivotal traits in
Although he is meant to be the fool of the play, he is actually the wisest of them all. However his other personality, which is kept deep down until near the end of the play, is feisty and dark which is confirmed when he says,
Shakespeare has been known to create terrific tales of love and tragedy. Even James Van Der Beek, a well known actor from Dawson's Creek, once commented that, “like all great romantics, Shakespeare realized love was a lot more likely to end with a bunch of dead Danish people than with a kiss”("Americans on the Bard"). This emphasizes how easily people can relate Shakespeare to tragic love. Although he did write many poems and plays with happy endings, his tragedies stand out the most. In these tragedies, people are often led through use of misconception, trickery, or both. An example of misconception can be shown by another of Shakespeare's plays, “Antony and Cleopatra,” as he wrote for Antony's part, “this foul Egyptian hath betrayed
Who are the true heroes in William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello? What is their perspective on making deep sacrifice for what they believe in? Let’s find the heroes and analyze their perspective on suffering voluntarily.
The play “Othello” by William Shakespeare was written in 1604 during the Elizabeth era. Othello is one of the most extraordinary characters in all of Shakespeare’s dramas. He enjoyed unheralded success in the combat zone, which gave him the reputation as one of Venice’s most competent generals. Even though he has great success in the battlefield, he has a dramatic flaw that causes a downfall in his life. The dramatic flaw that causes his downfall is jealousy. This was brought on by a simple persuasion of Iago, the evil character in the play. Even though Iago used extreme manipulation to get Othello to be jealous, Iago did not really have to try very hard to get Othello in a jealous state of mind. Othello was blinded by his jealousy which
In Shakespeare?s play Othello, Othello himself is the tragic hero. He is an individual of high stature who is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. His destruction is essentially precipitated by his own actions, as well as by the actions of the characters surrounding him. The tragedy of Othello is not a fault of a single person, but is rather the consequence of a wide range of feelings, judgments, misjudgments, and attempts for personal justification revealed by the characters.
As in almost all tragedies, especially those of William Shakespeare, the tragic hero always runs into misfortune. The play Othello is no exception. In this play, every character acquainted with the tragic hero appears to be unfortunate. While these misfortunes are oddly related to Othello, are they his fault or did each character attract them out of their own actions? To answer this daunting question, one must consider the three most unfortunate characters: Othello, Desdamona and Roderigo and analyse their downfall which eventually lead to their deaths. It is known from reading the play that Iago is the one who manipulates all three of them. Examinations of their connection with him before their deaths are necessary to answer this
The Shakespearean tragedy Othello contains a number of themes; their relative importance and priority is debated by literary critics. In this essay let us examine the various themes and determine which are dominant and which subordinate.