The Tragic Flaw Of Shakespeare 's Othello

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

Othello, a play that was written in 1604 by William Shakespeare, is an example of a type of story called a “tragedy.” Throughout the course of the work, Othello proves himself to be very easily misled, despite his heroic status. This causes him to lose his ability to make good judgments and decisions. Even though Othello had a reputation as a hero, he ends up being one of the most gullible characters in the play when he completely falls into the evil trap that Iago set for him. As the story unfolds Othello’s character evolves in an extremely tragic way as Iago manipulates him and leaves him to rot in his misery. Eventually, this leads to Othello’s suicide.

What is a tragedy? A tragedy is a drama in which the protagonist is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances. In the play Othello, William Shakespeare uses the literary device characterization in sequence to convey that Othello’s tragic flaw is the main reason that brings Othello to his downfall --- death. The causes of the tragedy of Othello are Othello’s gullibility to Iago, jealousy of Desdemona’s affair, and male pride.

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?”

Shakespeare is known for his use of recurring themes throughout his work, including love, death and betrayal. These themes are present in his work of Othello. However, the most fundamental issue is jealousy. The lives of the characthers in Othello are ruined by jealousy from the beginning to the end of the play. The telling of the story is carried out by passion, jealousy, and death. Shakespeare’s Othello reveals devastating tragic inevitability, stunning psychological depth, and compelling poetic depth; the fragility and mysterious power of love, as well as demons of doubt, and how suspicion can be triggered by manipulative villain (Barthelemy 12).

All humans are united in their imperfection. Everyone is inevitably flawed; this is human nature. How one rectifies their mistakes truly shapes who they are. Shakespeare’s Othello exemplifies the imperfection of human nature, focusing on what happens when each character’s fatal flaw takes control over their decisions, and eventually distorts their individual perspectives. Their actions consequently erupt in chaos by the end of the play. This play ultimately serves as a reminder of human nature. Though infinitely diverse and complex, humans are creatures of habit who ultimately share the same villainous tendencies. The evil in the world will always prevail through the manipulation of one’s imperfections, leading to the downfall of the

lip’, ‘Old black ram’. At the start of the play when he is seen heroic

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

‘Othello’ was written between 1601 and 1603. It was first performed in the Elizabethan courts during the Christmas season. The idea of a ‘perfect’ tragedy is the idea that the tragedy is faultless; it does what is expected; so makes the audience feel empathy and sympathy for the characters who suffer. There are two different types of tragedy: classical tragedy and Shakespearean tragedy. The tragic hero in this play is the main character, Othello. Othello's misfortune comes about because of his jealousy, trust, and his pride. This essay aims to look at, and compare, how Shakespeare wrote his tragedy, and how other tragedies are written. I will mainly compare ‘Othello’, for Shakespearean tragedy, and ‘Oedipus Rex’, by Sophocles, for

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.

By using these guidelines, Shakespeare created one of his greatest Aristotelian tragedies. This is because he applied the Poetics’ guidelines to complex plot, the tragic hero, and the establishment of pity, fear, and catharsis of the audience’s emotions. The complex plot follows Othello and his transformation from nobleman to monster through the exploitation of his tragic flaw. As the plot moves from exposition, complication, challenge, conflict, climax, and finally to dénouement, Othello goes through a recognition scene which leads to a reversal in his fortune and his scene of suffering.

Shakespeare is very well known for his inclusion of tragic flaws throughout the storylines of his novels. Hero’s, as courageous as they may seem, are just like any other person and go through flaws throughout their lifetime regardless of the extent of their situation. In Shakespeare’s novel Othello, with all the events twisting the readers mind from one side to another, there are many distinct qualities that portray Othello’s tragic flaw. Iago was portrayed as an honest character but with his careful deceptions jabbing in Othello’s mind, he is far from honest. Othello’s tragic flaw is that he trusts others opinions more than his own perceptions and Shakespeare develops this flaw by using convincing persuasive appeals and strong syntax throughout

Within this play, fundamental questions about humanity, as well as situations, attitudes, and problems that continue to hold strong universal meaning to this day are explored .It shows Shakespeare’s ability to create characters who resemble real life individuals and reflect lifestyles and personalities accurately.  You could not help but be moved by the dark despair and utter wretchedness of Othello’s downfall! Shakespeare has dramatically explored many aspects of the human condition in this play, The Tragedy of

Aristotle defines a tragedy as a ‘representation of an action which is important, complete and limited in length. It is enacted not recited and by arousing pity and fear, it gives an outlet to emotions of this type.’