Honesty In Othello

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The construction of characters in literary texts plays a powerful role in conveying texts values. In Shakespeare’s ‘The tragedy of Othello, the moor of Venice’, or later known as Othello, there are many characters to discuss but Othello, the noble general, and Iago, the honest but jealous ‘Ancient’ are going to be discussed because of the fact that they are the main protagonist and antagonist of the play, the roles of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. In plays and scripts the audience can only really know anything about the characters is from what they have said, the audience isn’t told what they are thinking, like in novels, and the only way we get a glimpse is when the only character performs a soliloquy. How they speak or what they do is solely based on …show more content…

“A man he is of honesty and trust” – Othello, act I scene III. As it is clearly displayed in the quote, Othello’s character values trust and honesty. This story was popular in the Elizabethan era and is still widely popular now, this is because the ideas were so universal that a wide range of the audience could relate or because even now; war, political conflict, and race still affect the world even when we have had enough of it. This story line has a typical villain (Iago), a damsel in distress (Desdemona) and Othello, the hero. Brave loyal and trustworthy. A moor in power in an all-white Venetian society. Writing about these conflicts could have been scandalous because of the lack of cultural awareness in the Elizabethan era. Othello could have been an idea of Shakespeare’s that race wasn’t important and he portrayed that in his plays and he putting a ‘moor’ in one and making him of higher rank could represent that no matter the colour, you can still achieve power, and this challenges racism. Othello could have been constructed for this particular idea. Some believe that Othello could be considered a ‘tragic hero’ because of his self-centred nature and gullibility that he allows himself to be manipulated by Iago instead of trusting his conscious, thus earning the

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