Among the latter category, Anna Jameson (1794-1860) is notable as the author of the first substantial and systematic discussion of Shakespeare's female characters, a volume published first in 1832 as Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical, and later retitled simply Shakespeare's Heroines. In Othello, events happen in a shorter space of time than is usual with Shakespeare. For example, picking up on Snow's earlier analysis of Iago's repressed sexuality and employing a similar hermeneutic of suspicion, Michael Neill's "'Unproper Beds'" (1989) finds in the play's curtained bed a potent symbol for an "unutterable" anxiety about interracial love and sex (394). The collective effect of these studies was to remind readers of the prominence of black characters on the early modern stage and literary page, to prompt new thinking about the impact of pernicious stereotypes equating blackness with ugliness, disloyalty, and evil, and to encourage further investigation of the historical realities and enduring legacies of slavery. ) It is a story of death and of betrayal that originally sprung from jealousy and false beliefs. 723 Words 3 Pages Open Document Othello is a tragic hero because of his greatnesses and his weaknesses. Othello by Shakespeare had been a story that ended with a tragedy as both Desdemona and Othello die at the end. . It tells about the nature of love, friendship and betrayal. New York: Harcourt, Brace,Jovanovich, 1955. The hero would struggle against overwhelming fate, and his defeat would be so noble that he wins the moral victory over the forces that destroy him. 4Othello was particularly popular with eighteenth-century critics, few of whom were convinced either by Rymer's strict views on neoclassical dramatic form or by his claim that the play's plot and characters were implausible. He is highly respected by the senators of Venice State and the citizens Human beings must grapple with their emotions and check their actions, to prevent either from getting out of hand. His characteristics, role in society, and relationships with those around him, unfortunately, make it easy for Iago (generally considered to be the true villain of Othello) to manipulate him. According to Aristotle (384-322 BC), a tragic hero is one who possesses extraordinary, almost superhuman, talents and attributes, but whose incredible gifts are ultimately destroyed through a. Aspects of the Novel. 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help you just now. Whilst human emotions such as jealousy remain universal despite context, attitudes [], Characters in Shakespeares Othello and The Tempest use stories to explain personal history or change the course of events. Fatal flaws usually result in some sort of death either internally, externally, or both. He chooses to take his rage out on his general, Othello. A tragic hero is a person who makes a bad judgment that leads to their own destruction. Othello. There are no real sub-plots, only very brief comic interludes, and what happens from Act 2 to Act 5 takes place in a period of some thirty six hours. Tragic heroes typically have heroic traits that earn them the sympathy of the audience, but also have flaws or make mistakes that ultimately lead to their own downfall. for only $11.00 $9.35/page. According to Dash, Othello explores the tragic possibilities for married women trapped within a patriarchal system that condones their subjection and even their abuse. Smith's reading of Othello suggests that aspects of the relationship between Iago and Othello that might be characterized in modern terms as gay, are presented in the play as assertions of masculinity, while love of women is consistently associated with the threat of effeminacy. Hes a strong and skilled fighter, and an eloquent speaker, and a loving partner (at least for a time). We will write a custom Research Paper on Shakespeares Othello: A Tragic Hero specifically for you for only 9.35/page. Divers recovered his body in Lake Nockamixon shortly before 7:30 p.m., he added. The drowning death is the second confirmed in June in Bucks County. student. . Is Othello a tragic hero or not? Does he have a tragic flaw or series According to Empson, Shakespeare is attentive to this semantic slippage and employs "honest," particularly as it is associated with Iago, as a means of acknowledging a gradual cultural shift toward individualism. 19Throughout the 2000s Othello criticism continued to benefit from the development of increasingly sophisticated accounts of the body, the self, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and citizenship, while postcolonial theory offered useful frameworks within which questions about Othello's nature and his relationship to the people and institutions around him could be examined. Although he can be the hero in most situations, once his emotions take over his personality and characteristics, it soon turns into a quick falling out that is full of a roller coaster of emotions and negative decisions. Having taken part in many wars and suffering from PTSD, he has developed a need . "It is very tragic. The villain Iago makes him believe what is clearly impossible, yet Othello, maddened by his jealousy, cannot see it. Othello spends the first parts of the play thinking that hes infallible, that there are nothing and no one that can come between him, his career, and power. The flash point of critical controversy has most often been the race and social status of its title character, but significant debates have also arisen about the play's dramatic structure, its representation of women, and the powerfully disturbing figure of Iago. Required fields are marked *. (2005). Most notable was Parker's own "Fantasies of 'Race' and 'Gender'" which interrogates notions of monstrosity, barbarousness, and civility by locating in the play a series of "split chiastic exchanges and divisions" that see Desdemona and Othello trading cultural identities as they assume varied roles within the complexly racialized and gendered narratives of literary teratology and colonialism. Othello's insecurities and how easily he trusts Iago are the main causes of his tragic downfall. The Pocket Aristotle. Reading Desdemona's proud claim "my heart's subdued / Even to the utmost pleasure of my lord" as a "moment of erotic intensity," Greenblatt argues that her forthright display of sexual submission, rather than reassuring Othello of her fidelity, plays into Iago's slanderous account of her as adulterous because it appears to confirm her as a sensual and desirous woman instead of as the sexually reluctant but obedient wife that marriage manuals and church doctrine taught men to expect and to value (250). What makes Othello a tragic hero is his tragic flaw. Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare of Stratford upon- Avon, a substantial citizen of that small but busy market town in the heart of the rich agricultural county of Warwick. 17The imbrication of scholarly discourses on gender and race found perhaps its clearest material confirmation in Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker's 1994 volume Women, "Race," and Writing in the Early Modern Period, a collection which included a number of essays that touched on Othello. In the end, although Othello has moments of villainy, it is Iago who is remembered as the primary villain of the story. Although, as a general, he holds a high military rank in the Venetian army, in terms of his tragic status he is not a European king or a European nobleman and so in one way is a figure much closer to that of an 'ordinary' man than most of Shakespeare's other tragic heroes. Othello As A Tragic Hero Essay Example - PHDessay.com Instead of enlisting Othello as evidence of a hostile collision between Islamic East and Christian West, Bartels argues, critics ought to understand the play as a product of a historical moment in which overlapping concerns about race, religion, and nationalism were being negotiated within the militarily and commercially significant space of the Mediterranean, and ought to view its titular Moor as emblematic not of cultural discord but of proto-globalization. He stayed there for twenty years. Cambridge University Press. Knights's objection to Bradley, famously articulated in his mockingly-titled essay "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth" (1933), lies in what he sees as Bradley's refusal to acknowledge Shakespearean tragedy's status as poetry. Ironically, Othello does not know the truth, but it is his gullibility of trusting the "honest Iago" (2.3.175) makes him believe anything he said, despite whether he had any physical evidence or not. . 5While critical interest in the dramatic portraits drawn by Shakespeare produced some engaging readings of his work, the developing conviction that literary texts could hold, as Hamlet would have it, "the mirror up to nature," contributed to the problematic assumption that that which is "natural" is at once fully consistent and apparent to everyone. Othellos fatal flaw was used used to shine a light on some of the darker characteristics of humanity, as it was a normal emotion that was taking to the extreme due to those individuals who continued to attempt to manipulate him. Shakespeare develops the characters into fully realized human beings, with their own names, personalities, and ways of looking at the world. Thirty-seven plays, as well as some poems are held to constitute the Shakespeare canon. Your privacy is extremely important to us. Sadly, once his tragedy of a flaw came into the spotlight it overtook his life and began to make all of his decisions for him. Shakespeare's Othello: A Tragic Hero Research Paper Othello as a Tragic Hero Essay - 723 Words | Bartleby https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-othello-a-tragic-hero/, IvyPanda. What is a tragedy? The database is updated daily, so anyone can easily find a relevant essay example. Students who find writing to be a difficult task. W. W. Norton & Company. Picking up on the play's discourse of color, Jameson argues convincingly that Othello's horror lies not in the affectionate relationship of the white-skinned Desdemona and the black-skinned Othello, but rather in the profound clash between the virtuous Desdemona and the malevolent Iago. Telford man dies a hero after jumping into Lake Nockamixon to save 2 Being that he was insecure about his race and background, he made it easier to get manipulated through poisonous words that were used to misguide and deceive him. Keep in mind: This sample was shared by another student. Desdemona and Cassio traveled to Cyprus on different ships. Othello was a Black man when racism still existed. Othello is Not a Tragic Hero Essay - 1481 Words | Bartleby This period produced such groundbreaking work as Eldred Jones's Othello's Countrymen: The African in English Renaissance Drama (1965) and G.K. Hunter's "Othello and Colour Prejudice" (1967), which offered accounts of medieval and early modern discussions of blackness, traced the effect of racial prejudice on the reception of literary texts featuring characters of color, and so introduced productive ways of exploring race in/and Othello. The tragic. Othello as a Tragic Hero and His Downfall - UK Essays Within this thought, Iago clearly compares Othello to an old black rambecause of his age and color. Vanita, R. (1994). He is a character of high stature who is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. In 348/7, Philip of Macedon attacked Stagira. Othello, the Moor fits the definition of Aristotle's tragic hero. Need a custom research paper sample written from scratch by While Bradley's brand of character criticismhis practice of treating the literary text as a "little world of persons" (28) populated by characters whose behavior could be explored just as one might discuss the behavior of one's neighborsis the defining feature of his approach to Shakespeare's tragedies, he is also attuned to matters of dramatic structure. Discussing Othello's rank in the Venetian military, Rymer argues: The character of that state [i.e., Venice] is to employ strangers in their wars, but shall a poet thence fancy that they will set a negro to be their general, or trust a Moor to defend them against the Turk? Tragedy is therefore truer than history wherein things frequently happen by chance. Iago preyed on his weakness, controlling and changing him for the worse. Situating Othello within the discourse of early modern geohumoralismthe myth that "variations in topography and climate produced variations in national characteristics" (133)Floyd-Wilson argues that while early in the play Othello matches early modern constructions of southerners as cool and wise, he is later contaminated by Iago and becomes "hybridalienated from his Moorish complexion by an Italianate doubleness" (155). . Iago convinces Roderigo to kill Cassio, but Cassio wounds Roderigo. "In Othello," Knight claims, "we are faced with the vividly particular rather than the vague and universal," and his own reading of the play focuses on explicating the symbolic function of its characters and celebrating what he calls the play's "formal beauty" (109). Iago is a true villain in the most obvious of terms. 1592, the first reference to Shakespeare as an actor and playwright was available. What a waste of lives! Is Othello a Tragic Hero? Essay - 1479 Words | Bartleby Bradleian character criticism had fallen out of favor, but the impulse to address the psychological complexities of Shakespeare's characters found fertile new ground in the insights of psychoanalytic theory. Groliers Encyclopedia, Vol. Othello is ultimately seen as a protagonist with a defect in his character, which in this case, is the one thing that will push him over the ledge. Unfortunately, Othellos story continues to remain closely connected to the modern society in the sense that people today have a harder time holding in their jealous and racists thoughts while also not having the confidence to speak up about their insecurities. He exhibits several contrasting features that make him incredibly interesting to analyze. It was greatly relevant during the time of the play, and is still relevant today. A drop of this poison flows in his veins, and sets his whole blood in the wildest ferment. Therefore, Shakespeare used Othello to depict him as a civilized, noble protagonist in order to force his audiences to reconsider the racial status that took place in the 17th century. Additionally, Shakespeare imbued Othello with contrasting features. It becomes clear that Othellos mind was ripe for manipulation. It contains thousands of paper examples on a wide variety of topics, all donated by helpful students. One of these elements is the tragic hero, a protagonist who seems to be ill-fated, and destined for doom. 9Critical interest in Othello continued into the early twentieth century, when, thanks to A.C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), the play gained a place alongside Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth in the pantheon of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. September 24, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-othello-a-tragic-hero/. The moor smothers his wife and then, confronted with proof of Iagos perfidy, kills himself. (Groliers Encyclopedia, 1961). Expert Answers. Shakespeares Othello: A Tragic Hero. Sometimes, the viewer would think that he is stupid to be swayed by the evil of Iago, but Iago is a villain and truly acts the part. This is the reason as to why he was referred to as governor-general. These are no simple tales; rather, they are complex and thought-provoking means of enriching each play [], All humans struggle to control themselves. His lofty status is of the utmost importance to him. Any likability he may have had for the reader or viewer is destroyed when he turns on Desdemona. Jealousy and the mad powers of the imagination together form an alliance of conflicting passions and cunning lies that destroy every one ad everything in their wake.(Studying Othello The Moor of Venice). "It is very tragic. He uses both of these things as an excuse to go after Othello, seeking Desdemona for his own bed and the destruction of Othellos life as recompense. This point is made clear by Desdemona: I saw Othellos visage in his mind. They could have lived happily ever after. And Emilia we can say that being such a moral person, she did not deserve the devil Iago as her husband. Jonathan Burton's Traffic and Turning (2005) also takes up the idea of conversion in Othello, arguing that Othello tries to counter the destructive psychological effects of an intense desire to be accepted by Christian Europe with "purple speech, his position at the vanguard of Christendom's forces against the Turks . The mistake of the hero plays a significant role in the plot o the tragedy. (2021, September 24). Greenblatt, S. Thomas Rymer (c. 1641-1713), whose A Short View of Tragedy appeared in 1693, is notable for providing the first major published criticism of the play, and also for the intensity of his dislike of Othello and its titular hero. Iago states, She did deceive her father, marrying you,/And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks,/She loved them most./And so she did. Iago does this to suggest to Othello that if Desdemona could disobey her own father, shed surely deceive her husband. We will occasionally send you account related emails. This attentiveness to the play's tragic heroine intersected with a notable increase in the number of women's voices contributing to public conversations in the realm of literary criticism, as female actors began lecturing and publishing on the roles they performed on stage, and as women slowly began to be admitted to the ranks of professional scholars of Shakespeare. 10Bradley's sympathetic reading of Othello, with its emphasis on Othello's nobility, Desdemona's saintliness, and Iago's central role as destroyer of their mutual and admirable love, has been enormously influential, although his approach has been attacked vigorously over the years, mostly notably in the 1930s by G. Wilson Knight, L.C. 11Perhaps the most influential close reading of the language of Othello remains William Empson's 1951 essay "Honest in Othello." The reader, or viewer, if the play is being performed live, should feel sorrow over Othellos death. Hes in a position of power, but his racial background is something that consistently sets him apart from those around him. He is a combination of greatness and weakness, in his own words "an honorable . Locating the play within both the historical moment that participated in its original production and the multiple pasts within which it was received and reconstructed by successive generations of players, audiences, and readers, Vaughan's wide-ranging study presents Othello as an index of changing conceptions of race, religion, and gender, and as itself a powerful producer of cultural meaning. As mentioned previously, Othello was an outsider in Venice. . Othello finds out the truth - Iago was a true villain of the story and made him blind. On average, it happens about once a week in Australia. Hes a Christian Moor and the general of the armies of Venice. The most important record is a marriage license issued November 27, 1582 to permit William Shakespeare to marry Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior. Let's fix your grades together! As a pupil of Plato, Aristotle and his master stand among the worlds very greatest of philosophers (Frost, 1942/ 1962). By clicking Continue, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy. We utilize security vendors that protect and Othello As Shakespeare's Tragic Hero Essays Example Anagnorisis, according to Aristotle is the recognition by the tragic hero of some truth about his/her identity or actions that accompany the reversal of the situation in the plot, the peripateia. 2021. Shortly following her death, reality hit Othello ard. "Our office extends its deepest condolences," Buck said. Othello eases away from his role as hero as Iago poisons his mind against his true love, Desdemona. On the contrary, readers such as Samuel Johnson (1709-84), one of the most influential essayists and commentators of the period, defended the play specifically on the basis of its compelling portrait of human behavior. Ruled by Passion - Othello as Tragic Hero - Shakespeare Online Documents indicate that in 1598, he was a principal comedian and in 1603, he was a principal tragedian. Through the experiences that he went through during the play, he taught us to not only be aware of everything around us, but also to understand human nature interactions by exaggerating the nitty-gritty social events of it all. Othello: A Tragic Hero Othello is one of the most famous plays by William Shakespeare. When confronted with the lie that Desdemona slept with someone else, Othello cannot control his rage, temper his emotions, or take the time to find out the truth. Neely, C. T. (2008). Washington Square Press. 12For critics a generation and more later, the suggestion that Othello criticism ought to consist in consideration of the play's generic antecedents, in appreciation and explication of what Knight had earlier called the "music" of its language (109), or in analysis of its thematic preoccupation with jealousy as this relates to a generalizable experience of action, emotion, and moral value began to seem at best nave and at worst politically suspect. Nine-year-old Joey Malcolm Jr. died on June 19 after he drowned while fishing in a neighborhood pond in the Pennsylvania borough of New Britain, authorities said. He was a high ranking individual within his society who was constantly full of joy, and lost it all due to the fatal flaws which were jealousy and insecurity. (PDF) Othello: A Tragic Hero | Daria Romanoff - Academia.edu Cambridge University Press. Othello is one of the more complicated characters in Shakespeare's plays.This is due to his waning loyalty to Desdemona, his role as a soldier, the ease with which he's convinced of . At this point, it is important to describe the nature of Desdemonas love for Othello. Bryant, J.R. , The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Othello ultimately loses the title of "tragic hero", when Desdemona dies as a direct result of Othello's free will and not an accident caused by Mother Nature or mere mortal fate. Bruce Smith's pioneering work on homosexuality in early modernity also built on Snow's insights as it investigated the fraught relationship between masculine friendship and marriage in Shakespeare (Homosexual Desire 1991). Othello is an incredibly conceited character. Gadamer, H. Truth and Method. (2002). Within this tragedy that they are a part of, theyre typically placed with heroic traits that allows them to gain the sympathy of the audience. Othello is a great example of not letting our daily emotions get the best of us, as they may lead us through a dark pathway. Noting that the word "honest" appears so often throughout the play, Empson explores how this key term is used by various characters at significant junctures in the action, locating his discussion within an analysis of shifts in the word's meaning over time. The whole tragedy tends to issue from this minor defect or slip of judgment. Of the many attacks on nature for which Rymer holds Othello responsible, he clearly considers its depiction of the marriage of a senator's daughter to a military commander irksome, and its portrayal of a man of color in the illustrious rank of general truly loathsome. Slightly after his weakness began to rise and take over, he begins to treat his wife poorly and eventually kills her by smothering her to death. The Greek word that describes what many people refer to as the tragic flaw of the hero of Greek tragedy is hamartia.