The theme of Madness in Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear - Essay Example

The theme of Madness/Jealousy in Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear This paper is examining the portrayal of thethemes of jealousy and madness in Hamlet, Othello and King Lear. The three plays are works of Shakespeare that are set in the Elizabethan era of writing, and the society in general. His works are both comical and tragedies giving them a unique feature of tragicomedies. It will consider various sections of the texts that reveal the existence of the themes and try to analyze the same, before making a comparison and synthesizing the information revealed about those themes and motifs in the three texts. The tragic-comedy of Othello has apparent evidence of jealousy running throughout the story-line. It focuses on the doom of Othello and some major figures in the melodrama. Iago and Othello propel the theme of jealousy which causes the former to show his real self triggering Othello to undergo a conversion that is an impact to the lives of friends. This is a real revelation that men do have such an emotion that the society at times relates or associates with women. However, the cause of the emotional challenge between the two men is a woman. The two are rivaling on Desdemona who is in love with Othello the Moor. The jealousy is brought about by the fact that Othello is black and the family is not for the idea of him marrying their daughter. Othello himself represents sexual jealousy which is destructive of emotions and corrupt. It is jealousy that pushes Iago to plan for the downfall of Othello. Iago states “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise; Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you. Arise I say (1.1.9)” Iago from the above is jealous by the mere fact that Othello is courting a white woman yet he is black. He does use the same jealousy to fuel and arouse Othello’s passions. Other characters like Bianca and Roderigo demonstrate or portray the theme of jealousy severally as the play unfolds, while Emilia shows a demonstration of how well she knows emotions. The audience of the play is part of the shared emotion of jealousy, and suffers the injuries of experiencing its influence that is destructive on characters with horror and sympathy (Howe, 60). In comparison, King Lear, on the other hand, has an incorporation of insanity as the central occupant of the play and has associations with both hidden wisdom and disorder. The character, who is a fool, who offers Lear insight at the onset of the play, offers his advice in a babble that is seemingly mad. Later, Lear himself faces turmoil in his mind and goes mad. He mirrors chaos that has fallen upon the kingdom. However, the same issue provides him with significant information that reduced him to a casual human being, stripped of all royal pretensions. Lear the King learns the aspect of humility and is joined by actual madness by Edgar feigning insanity, which contains nuggets of knowledge for the king to my wisdom. Meanwhile, Edgar’s time as a beggar who is supposedly insane hardens him and makes him ready to work towards defeating Edmund at the end of the play. Lear in his turmoil states that “Let not womens weapons, water-drops, stain my mans cheeks!” (2.4.277). He is fearing that women are on the verge of making her go mad. The women are her daughters ( Shakespeare, 277). This can still be easily related to the portrayal of the theme of jealousy in Othello in the sense that if one tries to compare and contrast the theme of jealousy with King Lear, it is evident that the style of writing is artistic and creates room for the audience to figure out the manner in which the two plays portray the themes in a scholarly and dramatic manner. Othello is jealous though he describes himself as being wrought in nature. His tragedy lies in the fact that his entire nature was in the surrounding of jealousy and yet he was open in an unusual sense to deception, and wrought o passion. He is likely to behave with little reflection, and without delay, and in a manner that is decisive and conceivable. The fat in this case is that Othello was only temperamentally jealous, but the idea behind that has some plausibility of the plays intention of studying a noble barbarian. He is a Moor who has decided to change to Christianity and has some imbibed employer civilization and retains the savage passions of the blood of the Moors. More so, Shakespeare portrays the theme of madness in Hamlet, which is a tragicomedy and an artistic coiling of the Elizabethan theatre. Madness may be mental incapacitation caused by injury that is unmentionable. Such wounds are not easily perceived but may come as a revelation at the time of immense stress. In the play Hamlet, the search for revenge is a real proof for madness in publicity degrees that causes harm to the audience (Shakespeare, 320). Shakespeare has created the theme of madness in Hamlet and employed a number of characters in ensuring that it is propelled fully and the intention of the play Hamlet is achieved. This has come as a result of the use of able characters like Laertes, Hamlet, and Claudis. Laertes likes Hamlet and is hexed and mad which inflects the entire court. This explains the fact that the moment an individual’s mental state has been put on public measure; it is difficult to tell the pain that may affect the audience. Ever since the death of Hamlet the King, young Hamlet appears to be in a state of madness. In the discussion between Polonius and Hamlet, the former questions Polonius by wanting to know if he has a daughter. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes has acquired a different form of madness. It is one that is controlled by the thirst to revenge. When talking to Claudis, there is much revenge brewing up in him against Hamlet. He even wishes to go to the extent of cutting hamlet’s throat. The next quote by Hamlet reveals the fact that he himself was aware of the fact that he was going mad “Though this be madness, yet there is method in t." (Act II, Scene II).  The sudden change of behavior by Laertes is as a result of the sudden demise of his father, which had no ceremony, and his gone mad sister. The madness grows stronger at the time of Claudius promise of no wind of blame, and when Laertes eliminates Hamlet. All this reveal the real nature of these characters, they are mad to the extent of committing murder and even doing worse things as the play unfolds. Another character in Hamlet that the author has employed appropriately in the bid to ensure that the theme of madness comes out perfectly is Ophelia, who has a sophisticated form of madness that is a mixture of both hate and love. For instance, hate is when she sings about the daughter of the baker in Act IV scene 5 of the play. She is referring to the way her dad used to treat her before the fatal accident that caused his death. The love that is hidden in her madness is when she talks of the events that took place on the day of Valentine. In her speech about that day, she is referring to the love that she was not duly given and the denied romance. Ophelia’s madness is as a result of lack of an opportunity to show any maturity in trying to cope with whatever she lost in her life and in turn tries to impose it on the court (Stirling & Brents, 13-14). King Lear, and Othello reveals jealousy and madness, especially in male characters while hamlet reveals the fact that the society is the same and people are the same. This is because; the author portrays both sexes as prone to similar emotional upheavals. The only difference that creates the gap is the manner in which we handle the stress, the madness, and the emotional feeling of issues or motifs like jealousy. Jealousy cuts across the play Othello and the causes of the emotion are women. However, basing on the character Ophelia, who is a woman, she has negative emotions towards a man who failed to play his part as father to her. More so, King Lear brings both men and women closer when it comes to the manner in which we handle emotions. This is because; the character Lear experiences a turmoil in his mind and becomes mad yet he is a man. Directly or indirectly, Shakespeare has used these unique characters in sophisticated ways to see to it that the theme of madness and that of jealousy are portrayed without bias. In conclusion, from the above discussions and revelations, there is clear evidence of the theme of madness and that of jealousy, either each standing separately, or at some points the two appearing in the same environment. Work Cited Stirling, Brents. "Theme And Character In Hamlet." Modern Language Quarterly 13.4 (1952): 323. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Howe, Adrian. "Enduring Fictions Of Possession: Sexual Infidelity And Homicidal Rage In Shakespeare And Late Modernity (Glossing Othello)." Griffith Law Review 21.3 (2013): 772. Informit Humanities & Social Sciences Collection. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Shakespeare, William. Othello. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2008. Internet resource. Shakespeare, William, and Harold Jenkins. Hamlet. London: Methuen, 1982. Print. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of King Lear. Champaign, Ill: Project Gutenberg, 1990. Internet resource. Read More