The Significance of Act 3 Scene 3 of William Shakespeare's Othello
Othello was written by Shakespeare around 1602 and was set 35 years
previously to that time (around 1571) during the Elizabethan era.
Shakespeare got the idea for the play from the Italian Novella 'Gli
Hecatommithi' and only changed minor details slightly. He kept the
same plot but some of the characters and themes in the play were very
different.
The play itself is a tragedy and includes the things that Aristotle
defined as what a tragedy should include. Firstly, a protagonist, this
is Othello. He is the protagonist as the play shows the story of his
fall from a place of eminence as is required in all tragedies
according to Aristotle. Othello is a tragic hero in that he portrays a
man with much greatness. Othello also has many weaknesses. In order to
really understand the character of Othello, we have to understand him
as a tragic hero with greatness and weakness. At the beginning of the
play his life is in order, as he was married to the beautiful
Desdemona, the younger daughter of a well-respected Senator,
Brabantio. However, Othello is a Moor, and their marriage was frowned
upon. In the play Othello is seen as a 'moor' therefore an outsider,
he has to try to come to terms with Venetian rules. His fatal flaw is
his jealousy, which is set off by Iago, the villain of the play. This
noble man meets with tragedy by falling to Iago's temptations and
believing that his wife is unfaithful to him. This is because Iago is
the antagonist in the story, also a vital part to a tragedy. He plays
on Othello's weakness, bringing out his fatal flaw of jealousy and
making him...
... middle of paper ...
...t Iago has a huge hold over Othello
already. This is because Othello takes Iago at face value and believes
him to be an honest man, also because the problems Iago is inferring
are all part of his insecurities. He was already insecure as he was an
outsider as a moor but in Venice he was needed so had some security as
this was also where his and Desdemona's love developed. This meant he
had a sense of security in both his public and private life. However
the move to Cyprus and into the unknown made him even less secure
making him believe anything without asking about it and even the
slightest evidence seems like solid proof to him. This is believable
because the language change has showed us that he is insecure. This
brings the play to a tragic close filled with death and realisation
and shows the scene to be believable.
Both Iago and Othello are emotional characters with a lot to offer. Othello is a gullible character who places too much trust in the wrong people. He trusts Iago over his own wife, Desdemona, allowing Iago to manipulate his mind. Iago instills doubt in Othello about anyone he has ever trusted, making them all seem untrustworthy. More than anything, Iago uses pathos to appeal to emotion.
Previous to Act 3 Scene 1 Romeo and Juliet marry each other. This is a
The Dramatic Effectiveness of Act III Scene I of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet In this climatic central scene of the play Tybalt kills Mercutio (a close friend to Romeo.) Romeo kills Tybalt (his cousin in-law.) and is banished forever from Verona (where his wife- Juliet lives.). The audience are aware that Romeo and Juliet had fallen in love at the Capulet ball and have been married by the Friar Lawrence in the previous scene.
* Hastiness- Romeo is hasty to fall in and out of love. The two are
Act Two in Understanding Desdemona in Othello by William Shakespeare The play “Othello” written by William Shakespeare is a tragedy in which appearance and reality are juxtaposed with jealously, hate, honesty and innocence. The character of Desdemona is one of the most admirable, and yet most pitiful, in all of Shakespeare. She is completely innocent, unable to comprehend how her husband can be jealous when “I never gave him cause!”. The other women in the play are cynical Emila and Cassio’s mistress, Bianca: contrasted with these two, Desdemona stands as an icon of female purity.
The Role of the Opening Act of William Shakespeare's Othello The play Othello portrays the story of the protagonist Othello (The Moor) and his loved one- Desdemona- and his struggles to overcome a racist society in 17th century Venice. In the meantime Iago, one of Othello’s closest friends’ plots revenge on him, as Othello passed him over for an important position in the army and gave it to Cassio, an outsider from Florence.
Desdemona is a stunning, youthful, white, Venetian debutante. She is her father's pride and joy, but she refuses to marry any of the rich, handsome Venetian men that her surroundings expects her to spend the rest of her life with. Instead, she elopes with Othello – an older black man, an outsider to Venetian society. Turns out, this is a pretty intrepid move – Desdemona not only defies her father's expectations (that she marry a white man of his choosing), she also thumbs her nose at a society that largely disapproves of interracial marriages. In this way, Desdemona's relationship with Othello speaks to the play's concerns with Sixteenth Century attitudes about sex, gender, and race. Desdemona withholds many attributes to the play Othello by Shakespeare. She leads on a perfect life, as the perfect woman, but will it last forever?
Othello's identity in the Venetian society is his role as "the Moor". Few people use his real name when talking about him. When speaking the given quote, Othello is telling the Venetians how he won Desdemona's heart by telling her the story of his life, and he now retells it to the Venetians. This tale-telling is a way of employing the linguistic system to reshape for himself a new identity with more positive connotations than "the Moor" can offer. "The Moor" is an expression the Venetians connect to other expressions in the linguistic system which all have a negative value. Examples are such expressions as "old black ram...
Within the drama, “The Tragedy of Othello”, Othello maintains a vital role in the plot within Shakespeare’s writing. Othello held a prominent role in society as a general for Venice and was both physically and psychologically respected in his community. However, during the drama Othello makes an important decision by choosing to murder Desdemona even with no clear proof; this action would affect Othello greatly as the drama transpired. Throughout Shakespeare’s script, Othello is continuously manipulated by Iago which ultimately results in not only the death of Desdemona but also the death of Othello himself. All of his actions would play a part in the overall analyzation of Othello; a tragic hero.
Othello’s true flaw is not vile, destructive jealousy, but rather pure and prevailing love. He has a very strong character of virtue and nobility that is intact up to the horrid end. Iago’s deceit and trickery are more the cause of Othello’s tragic fall than any fault of Othello himself. This innocence and greatness of the tragic hero unequaled in any other Shakespearean tragedy is what gives the play its terrible irony and passion. Othello plays on the most powerful of all human emotions: faith and love, both embodied to the fullest in the great and honest Othello.
William Shakespeare masterfully crafted Othello, the Moor of Venice as an Aristotelian tragedy play. The main protagonist of the play, Othello, is the perfect example of a tragic hero. Shakespeare was influenced by Aristotle’s concept of a tragic hero and used Aristotle’s principles to create Othello. William Shakespeare attempted to create an Aristotelian tragedy play with a tragic hero and succeeded in Othello, the Moor of Venice by weaving in pity and fear into each line and action. The power of pity and fear creates the upmost tragic situation and follows in accordance of Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. Othello makes the ultimate act as a tragic hero by killing himself at the end of the play. “Othello, more than any play in the canon, has a fascinating and contentious performance and reception history,”
always mean that a person is good or bad and so by making Othello a
Othello as a Tragic Character in William Shakespeare's Play The play Othello by William Shakespeare is about passion, treachery and revenge. Othello is a black, well-respected army general in Italy. He falls in love with the white daughter of Brabantio, a senator of Italy, called Desdemona and gets married to her without Brabantio's consent. Iago and Cassio are Othello's best friends, Iago turns out to be two-faced and evil towards Othello because he gave the job of lieutenant to Cassio when Iago thinks it should have been his.
Iago has been excellent at saying the what is needed to get to people, he misleads them to get a reaction he wants out of them. He is clever with his words to avoid confrontation that can easily happen. “Othello 's confusion is the human experience of language. In other words, language itself, not the outside world, determines meaning” (Christofides 2). Iago uses his words against Othello to get him to do Iago’s doings. Iago has an eloquence with
Shakespeare wrote different types of plays such as comedies, tragedies, and historical plays. The play Othello is one of his tragedies. It is about a character named Othello who is a Moor, in the service of Venice. Throughout the play Iago, Othello's lieutenant, manipulates Othello to believe that Desdemona, Othello's wife, is cheating on him. Various characters in the play Othello appear to be virtuous, upstanding individuals, but their actions reveal that they are not as they appear to be.