Nelson’s film adaptation of Othello is one of the many adaptations that Hollywood has created to modernize old works to fit into current times. “O” is about an African American high school basketball star that attends an all white prep school Palmetto grove. Odin James is the MVP of his basketball team; he shares this title with his best friend Michael. Odin dates Desi the Dean’s daughter and they are madly in love. Hugo is the coaches’ son, and is jealous of O and Michael’s success on the basketball court. Hugo then plots to play O against Desi and Michael. This works and in the end O ends up killing Desi, along with himself. In the end Hugo gets caught.
Nelson’s modern day remake of Shakespeare’s legendary tragedy Othello holds true to many of the same elements of the original play. Though the elements are altered into different circumstances and locations the overall theme remains the same. The characters names are a more modernized version of the original names Shakespeare used. Some of the characters names have special meanings behind them as well. For example the name Odin, there is a God names Odin that is known as the father of all Gods, as well as the God of war and death, but also the God of poetry and wisdom.(“Odin”) The characters full name is Odin James, making his initials OJ. When one hears the name OJ most automatically refer to OJ Simpson, a black man, who murdered his white wife, all because of jealousy. Desi or in the original play Desdemona. Desdemona is a Greek baby name that means misery, and unlucky.(…) The other characters names such as Hugo is Iago, Emilie is Emilia, Rodger is Rodrigo, and Michael is Cassio.
One of the more notable differences between the original play and the new adaptation...
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...nal play—he then goes on to tell Desi’s father that Odin was forcing himself on Desi. Next he started a fight with Michael at a party, which lead to Michael getting benched and Odin getting mad at Michael, causing strain between the two. Hugo suggest to Michael that he become close with Desi to get back in with Odin. Then it starts; Hugo’s master plan has been set into action. He plants lies into Odin’s head about Desi and Michel that he ends up believing, because he lets jealousy cloud his judgment.
In the original play Emilia was Desdemona’s lady in waiting, in the movie she is Desi’s best friend and Hugo’s sometimes girlfriend. Through out the movie there are points where you can see the jealousy Emilie has towards Desi and Odin’s relationship. Emilie is desperate for the attention of Hugo, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get that attention.
In the play "Othello", Othello is a black, which is same as Odin (in the movie "O"). Also, Othello is a person who has won many battles, and everyone respects him. This is similar to the situation of Odin. In "Othello", all the characters are living in high class society, which have high reputation and rich. Moreover, in "O", a private school requires expensive school fees to study, this shows that the characters or their families are
In America today, some states have in place the death penalty to punish the violators of society's most sacred laws. The American government may not decide who receives this punishment, but is the one who carries out the sentence. In the cases of John from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Othello from William Shakespeare's Othello, their deaths are a result of punishment for a wrong done. However, the government does not carry out the punishments; they are carried out by the wrongdoers themselves in the form of suicide. They have in common many situations, including their unfortunate end, in their respective stories but also share a few key differences. John and Othello share the fact that they are both physically and socially isolated from society, but they kill themselves for opposite reasons as John tries to separate from society and Othello wants to conform. Because of the way that Huxley and Shakespeare wrote the scenes leading up to their deaths, the importance of the deaths varies.
Evil is defined as being profoundly immoral of malevolent. Being faced with evil is can be challenging especially when the person is unaware that it is present. In the Play Othello by William Shakespeare and the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Othello and Ralph are faced with the challenge of evil. Othello is an outsider of Venice coming from South Africa that is sometimes ridiculed based on the color of his skin; yet earned the title of respect with his intelligence, courage, and skills. Othello’s insecurities and him not knowing when evil is looking him straight in the eye, leads him to his down falling. Ralph... Both characters in the beginning act in a moral manner, until the end of the stories when both characters have been
...ence more reasoning to the jealousy of the characters and the actions they take. With the changed setting come many differences: drugs and alcohol, peer pressure, violence, and different sources for jealousy and hatred. These issues are the dilemmas we, as teenagers in this new millennium, are faced with day to day. "O" addresses these new era evils without abandoning the original themes and major issues of Shakespeare's Othello. The audience can relate to a story written down hundreds of years ago and benefit from it.
Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Othello, a play written by William Shakespeare in approximately 1603, focuses on two opposite characters named Othello and Iago. Othello is a respectable army general who tragically dies in the end. The readers believe that his flaw is jealousy, which ruins his calm and makes him believe Iago, a character nobody should trust. The antagonist of the play, Iago, is a cunning liar who lies and tricks almost every other characters in the play to ruin and manipulate Othello. The play starts on the street of Venice where Iago convinces Roderigo to plot against Othello by planning falsely accuse Othello’s wife, Desdemona, of cheating. Interestingly, another specific detail critics usually look at is that Shakespeare choose to make the character of Othello a dark-skinned man, which was not a common feature a hero should have during the Elizabethan. Some of the common themes in Othello are the role of race and racism, the effects of jealousy, and the differences between genders during the Elizabethan.
...Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
On the other hand, Odin’s position in society in “O” does not compare to the significance placed on Othello. Not only does a high school basketball position seem less important, but the difference of pressure, and emotion separate their rolls. Odin, the basketball star lacks many things when comparing him to the Moor, but most importantly he has no authority. The MVP stands next to Othello’s shoes, which portray a size too big for him to fill, much less anyone. The responsibility of the basketball star consists of being the leader of a team. This scenario entails much less magnitude and intensity when contrasted to a ...
Othello is noble, tender, and confiding; but he has blood of the most inflammable kind. Unfortunately, Othello was naïve enough to be swayed by Iagos misplaced trustworthiness and the accusations cause the entire play to unfold. Once someone brings up a sense of all his wrong doings, he cannot be stopped by considerations of remorse of pity until Othello has extinguished all that fuels his rage and despair. Othello is described as a “Moor” by his critics (Brabantio, Iago). A “Moor” is a slang word used for the dark skinned appearance of the Muslim people from the northwest part of Africa.
In everyones life there is always the one person who you think you can trust, and later come to find that they have been playing you all along. This is the exact case for Othello. Iago, whom Othello thought was a person he could trust, betrayed him in many horrific ways.As you read the famous Shakespearian play, Othello, the Moor of VeniceI, you come to realise pretty quickly that Iago is the evil charecter in this play. The readers do not actually get to see a good side of Iago, if there is any, because he is constantly using and playing people. Readers will also come to learn that no matter how evil Iago may be perceived as that he is very much a coward, using other people to do most of his dirty work for him.
Texts and their appropriations reflect the context and values of their times. Within Shakespeare’s Othello and Geoffrey Sax’s appropriation of Othello, the evolution of the attitudes held by Elizabethan audiences and those held by contemporary audiences can be seen through the context of the female coupled with the context of racism. The role of the female has developed from being submissive and “obedient” in the Elizabethan era to being independent and liberated within the contemporary setting. The racism of the first text is overtly xenophobic and natural, whilst the “moor” is unnatural whereas the updated context portrays Othello’s race as natural and racism as unnatural. Therefore these examples show how Shakespeare’s Othello, and it’s appropriation, Geoffrey sax’s Othello, reflect the context and values of their times.
“I asked her to wear something revealing, so she showed up in a prophet's toga.”(CITE) Jarod Kintz’s words are an example of miscommunication, or failure to comprehend meaning. In this case, it is implied that one person misunderstood the message of another, but incomprehension also applies to problems other than falsely interpreted requests. Incomprehension can occur when people misinterpret another’s words or intentions, or when a person misreads situations or events. The outcome described in Kintz’s quote is unexpected and unintended, but there are instances of incomprehension that have consequences of greater severity. Perhaps a classic tragedy with a high body count falls under these parameters.
Jones, Eldred. "Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s Othello. Ed. Anthony G. Barthelemy Pub. Macmillan New York, NY 1994.
Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Jones, Eldred. "Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s Othello. Ed. Anthony G. Barthelemy Pub. Macmillan New York, NY 1994.