Analysis of Shakespeares Othello - Book Report/Review Example

Analysis of Shakespeare’s Othello This paper is an analysis of Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello and discusses three points: whether Othello is a tragic hero, what Shakespeare revealed in the play about his attitudes to women, and the meaning of the symbolism of hell in the play. Is Othello a tragic hero? Why or why not? Definitions by Belsey and Eagleton of the literary dramatic form known as a tragedy share some basic, common characteristics: the noble hero suffers and dies because of something inside, such as a character flaw, or because of conflicts from outside, such as unexpected opposition from a dark-hearted villain. The hero is the main protagonist of the drama and is usually a noble person who lives by honorable ideals and treats those around him with the same honor and nobility that ends up being abused. While these qualities of the hero endear him to others, these same qualities become the opening that the villain or evil character contradicts and exploits. Such exploitation leads to the hero’s downfall, suffering or death. The tragic hero’s fate is an irony of sorts, because in the end he suffers the same evils he wanted to avoid by his honorable behavior. This is the fate of the tragic hero, who may look and behave like a perfect human being with a few minor flaws, but as Aubrey argued, a hero is in reality far from perfect. Heroes have flaws that he manages to hide from others or that are masked by what Auden (195) finds similar to “hybris” or pride, and it is this flaw that lead to downfall. All it takes is a villain determined to unmask the hero’s flaws and abuse his trust and confidence. Othello is therefore a tragic hero led to his own and his wife’s dishonorable death by the villain Iago. But what exactly is Othello’s character flaw (or flaws) has been the object of countless analysis since Shakespeare wrote the play (Todd and Dewhurst). A study of the play reveals three fatal character flaws related to “hybris” that led to Othello’s tragic end. First, Othello was overconfident in the thought that everyone in his service was as noble and honorable as he was, so he fully trusted everyone, more so Iago, his servant. Othello never imagined that Iago was capable of evil, or that his promotion of Cassio was to be the cause for Iago to want revenge. Othello also never imagined Iago would lust after Desdemona. This character flaw can be called naïveté. It made Othello easily fooled by Iago who may have been motivated by racism (Little) or cultural bias (Floyd-Wilson). Second, Othello was proud. Being naïve is not really a problem as long as one does not worsen it with pride. The danger with being a proud person is that of applying the same naïve standards to others and being so easily fooled by their behavior or by what other people say. If someone, in Othello’s case Desdemona and Cassio, seem to behave contrary to what had been expected (fidelity from Desdemona and loyalty from Cassio), even if such an observation had been stage-managed by Iago, then this inconsistency feeds the pride and ends in tragedy. Othello’s tragic mistake was to trust the untrustworthy (Iago) and to mistrust the faithful and loyal (Desdemona and Cassio). Third, Othello did not know how to love wisely, as he himself admitted (V.ii.396) in the end, but claimed he loved too much. With his naïveté and his pride, Othello loved himself and his honor too well, more than he loved Desdemona. Otherwise, he would not have killed her, or at the least, he would have asked for her version of events. But Othello assumed that Iago was a good servant, Cassio was disloyal, and Desdemona was a cheater. It was a series of fatal mistakes that resulted in the tragic end. Discuss the roles of the three women in the play and what Shakespeare says about women. The three women in the play are Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. Desdemona was the daughter of Brabantio and wife of Othello. Emilia is the wife of Iago and Desdemona’s maid. Bianca is the lover of Cassio. Each of these three women represents different types of women. Desdemona is the pure, loyal and perfect wife, naïve in affairs of the heart like her husband, a woman of honor and nobility easily swayed by the heroic exploits of an exotic-colored character. She was swept off her feet by Othello and ran away to marry him, even if such a deed was against the wishes of her father. Although her love was innocent and pure, she never thought for a moment that running off with Othello was against social conventions. She listened to her heart, loved Othello, and behaved accordingly. Desdemona was a martyr wife, willing to suffer and accept blame rather than explain the truth. She was like her husband: naïve, proud and unwise too in love. No wonder their union ended in their deaths because, ironically, they were too honorable to admit their faults or cast doubt on another. Desdemona’s death was the more honorable because she would rather die than see her husband humiliated for being mistaken. Emilia, on the other hand, was a woman whose character blossomed as the play progressed. At the start, Iago only had demeaning and stereotype words for her when he talked about her to Othello. Obviously, Emilia turned out to be more loyal than Cassio, more a servant than Iago, and capable of a deeper love than Desdemona. Working as a maid to Desdemona and living as a wife to Iago, Emilia seemed the wisest of the three, one who truly knew how to love wisely and well. She loved her mistress and was obedient to her husband, willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until she became aware of her husband’s evil intentions. When she learned about it, she tried to find a way out. Unluckily, she was caught in the middle of the conflict and suffered the consequence of death, but not until she revealed to Othello the truth of his naïveté, Desdemona’s innocence, and Iago’s treachery. The third woman in the play, Bianca, was the least known of the characters, but she played an important role in the evil scheme of Iago. Bianca’s jealous outrage at finding Desdemona’s handkerchief with Cassio played into the hands of Iago who wanted to show Othello that Desdemona was unfaithful. Bianca had a minor role, but Iago used her perfectly to lead Othello to judge Desdemona wrongly, until the tragic result was achieved. In these three women characters, Shakespeare wanted to reflect his views on the role of women. Each of these three behaved according to stereotypes of the time: good servants of their husbands, objects of sex, pleasure and ownership, and prone to dramatic outbursts, talking too much or being too demanding of their husbands. Included in these stereotypes are that a faithful and chaste wife is a good wife, that the perfect wife is one who keeps her mouth shut, and that obedience to the husband is the rule. Desdemona’s radical submission to her husband, even one that resulted in her death, was an extreme mode of behavior. Shakespeare, however, and contrary to the social conventions of the time, attempted to show the inner strength of women, making use of messages that were shown as ways of behavior that may seem as too “womanly” and “unintelligent”. These subtle messages were trailblazing in his time, but most are accepted nowadays. First, women are more heroic and willing to die for love, as Emilia and Desdemona did. Othello killed himself too, but it was more out of pride at realizing his tragic mistake. Second, women are more faithful to the truth, as Emilia and Desdemona did, dying for the truth. Desdemona’s decision to marry Othello against her father’s wishes was a sign of her courage, and so was Emilia’s willingness to put up with an evil man, Iago. Third, women deserve respect. Although Shakespeare put demeaning words (I.i.90, II.i.100-111) about women in the mouths of Iago, Cassio, Othello and Brabantio, among others, he did the same with Emilia and Desdemona (IV.iii.92-95, III.iv.144) who exchanged demeaning observations about men. Shakespeare, in effect, wanted to give the message that men may think women are full of faults, but the men have more and that the women know it. Choose a recurring image or symbol (like the handkerchief, the moon imagery, or the extensive Hell imagery) and discuss its importance to understanding the play. The extensive Hell imagery in the play was a recurring symbol to show how tragedy is the result of evil that can be present and that can triumph even where there is pure love, nobility and goodness of heart. Shakespeare’s Hell imagery in Othello is a backdrop that points towards Iago as the incarnation of the devil whose goal is to use lies upon lies to craft a web of suspicion and hatred to achieve revenge (Gray and Seely 288). Iago’s intentions were clear: he wanted to get back at Othello for rewarding Cassio instead of him. In the process, Iago aimed at destroying everyone around Othello: Desdemona, Cassio and Roderigo. Iago made use of his position and abused it. He also took advantage of Othello’s sense of honor and nobility. Iago maneuvered and manipulated all the other characters, even Brabantio, with whom he wanted to cast doubt on Othello’s reputation. He twisted Desdemona’s image so that Othello was led to despair and humiliation. He trapped Cassio into committing a fault so that the only solution could be twisted into the knife that would kill both Desdemona and Othello. Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, Iago also wanted to eliminate the witnesses and killed Roderigo and Emilia. Iago spread lies and set traps for everyone by exploiting their weaknesses, be it bodily pleasure, positions, riches or pride. Throughout the whole drama (see for example II.iii.345-48 for Iago’s admission that he was evil), the recurring imagery of hell showed how Iago orchestrated all the characters and events like an incarnation of Satan, the father of lies. There was no escape, and the characters all played their parts, giving in to their weaknesses, satisfying their base desires, and blinded to Iago’s evil intentions. Only Emilia knew what her husband was capable of, and it cost her life. The message, then, is that evil will lead to tragedy if we allow evil to control our passions. Works Cited Aubrey, James R. “Race and the Spectacle of the Monstrous in Othello.” CLIO 22, 1993. Auden, Wystan Hugh. Lectures on Shakespeare (Critical Editions), Arthur C. Kirsch (Ed). Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. Belsey, Catherine. The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama. Routledge Kegan & Paul, London, 1985. Eagleton, Terry. Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic. Wiley-Blackwell, New York, 2002. Floyd-Wilson, Mary. “Moors, Race, and the Study of English Renaissance Literature: A Brief Retrospective.” Literature Compass 3, 5 (2006): 1044-52. Gray, Colin and John Seely. Heinemann Advanced Shakespeare: Othello. Heinemann, London, 2000. Little, Arthur L., Jr. “An Essence Thats Not Seen: The Primal Scene of Racism in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly 44, 3 (1993): 304-324. Todd, John and Kenneth Dewhurst. The Othello Syndrome: A Study in the Psychopathology of Sexual Jealousy. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 122, 4 (October 1955): 367-374. Read More