Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Tragic flaws of othello
Tragic flaws of othello
Dilemmas in Othello
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Tragic flaws of othello
In many instances in literature, the flaws of characters lead into conflicts that arise and that the characters must attempt to overcome over the duration of the storyline. In some cases, the character facing these problems, typically the protagonist, is unable to triumph over such issues. This can cause their major character flaws to overwhelm them, and they can encounter even more troubles or even their own downfall. A comparable situation as the aforementioned is found in the Shakespearean tragedy, Othello, where the character flaws of the protagonist, Othello, cause weakness in his character, which ultimately leads to his downfall and death. One of the flaws that lead Othello to his downfall is the fact that he has very poor judgement, which is indisputably seen through the consistent trust that he finds in Iago. His downfall also occurs due to his overwhelming struggle against jealousy, which materializes primarily from the relationship that his wife has with Cassio. Furthermore, Othello’s insecurities cause weakness in his character, allowing the antagonist of the story, Iago, to use them in order to lead Othello into his downfall. With these faults in his character, it is evident that Othello’s downfall comes about due to his major character flaws.
Regardless of whether someone in real life or a character in literature has poor judgement, it is common that they can have issues with trusting the right people, and that they tend to not trust those who they should find trust in the most. This is found precisely in the character Othello and his flaw of having poor judgement. Throughout the play, he finds himself to trust Iago the most, who in reality, is secretly the main opposing force working against Othello. After Iago con...
... middle of paper ...
...o’s insecurity was one of the major character flaws that leads to him killing himself at the end of the play.
Conclusively, it is evident that in this Shakespearean tragedy, Othello’s downfall comes to be due weakness in his character, which comes into existence due to his major character flaws. Through his poor judgement, Othello can not figure out who is trustworthy and who he should find as not being loyal. Furthermore, jealousy overpowers Othello and his mindset, which fills him with thoughts of anger and hate. Likewise, Othello’s insecurity is a major flaw that bewilders him and causes him to be very distraught. Thus, with these points, it is unmistakeable that Othello faces a set of character flaws, that when found alongside each other, are almost impossible to overcome, which in the end lead to the tragic downfall and death of Othello in the end of this play.
When Shakespeare composed the tragedy Othello televisions were not. Along with no televisions, life in the late 1500s had many different qualities than it does today. This time period had no war on drugs and no high school shootings. Peer pressure was not an issue. The audiences of Othello in the 1500s did not face the circumstances that we, American high school students, face today. With these significant differences in daily life, come the attempts of movie creators to help prevent our modern day tragedies.
The hero’s, Othello, tragic flaw could be seen to be his lack of self-knowledge which brings about his downfall. It can be argued that Othello has a number of problems such as a propensity to jealousy, poor judgement of character and a violent nature, however this could all be resolved through self-knowledge. In addition to this, throughout the play Othello proves that he is self-centred and lacks self-knowledge because he gives in to his propensity to jealous which makes him lose sight of what is happening around him. He is so blinded by jealousy that he is unable to balance emotion with logic and becomes stubborn when he hears Iago’s lies. This suggests that his lack of self-knowledge and reason sets him up for his own demise due to the fact that he possesses a weak character and has a propensity to
Othello is one of Shakespeare’s four pillars of great tragedies. Othello is unique in comparison to the others in that it focuses on the private lives of its primary characters. When researching the subject of Othello being an Aristotelian tragedy, there is debate among some critics and readers. Some claim that Shakespeare did not hold true to Aristotle’s model of tragedy, according to his definition in “Poetics,” which categorized Othello as a classic tragedy as opposed to traditional tragedy. Readers in the twenty-first century would regard Othello a psychological thriller; it definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat creating the emotions of terror, heart break, and sympathy. This paper will focus on what Shakespeare actually intended regarding “Othello” and its Aristotelian influences.
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.
Nick Potter states: “Othello is a tragedy of incomprehension, not at the level of intrigue but at the deepest level of human dealings. No one in Othello comes to understand himself or anyone else.” Within Shakespeare’s Othello, no character fully understands themselves of one another. This is especially true in human dealings, where the intentions of characters and how others interpret them are often misaligned. Conflict, and eventually, tragedy arises in Othello due to the incomprehension between characters, as well as within the characters themselves. From the reader’s perspective, it is tragic to understand the reality behind all the incomprehension, since the characters are oblivious to what the readers are aware of.
Obviously Othello portrays the characteristics of a tragic hero. He clearly was a man of nobility, of noble character and held in a very high estate. He was discussed in this play by displaying his positive traits which man continues to search for in order to fulfill a happy life. His traits quickly came crashing down because of character flaws in other people such as deceit, fraud, selfishness, hatred, and a deep desire for revenge. Following Othello's trust for his good friend Iago, he clearly demonstrated flaws in the forms of judgments, jealousy, loss of self-control and his lack of self confidence in himself. All this eventually lead to the murder of Desdemona whom he continued to love through the end and his own eventual self inflicted death.
Tragedy is an intrinsically human concept; tragic heroes are damned by what they themselves do. Othello is not so much felled by the actions of Iago, but by a quality all people possess-- human frailty. Accordingly, Othello is not a victim of consequences, but an active participant in his downfall. He is not merely a vehicle for the machinations of Iago; he had free agency. Othello's deficiencies are: an insecure grasp of Venetian social values; lack of critical intelligence, self-knowledge, and faith in his wife; and finally, insecurity-- these are the qualities that lead to his own downfall.
Women in Othello are very profound. They are very dependent on their men. During the 16th Century, women were traditional and accustomed to being submissive to their men/husband. Desdemona secretly married Othello a “Moor” (a black man). She is devoted to her husband, and respects and obeys his wishes. Even though Othello can be cruel to Desdemona, his wife Desdemona responds to her husband in a way that she gets her point across, and still respects Othello. Women during the 16th century were not highly honored by men. During that time women in Othello were very dependent on men.
From the beginning, Othello is noble, quick to act, judicious, trusting, and gives much weight to the importance of duty. These are all traits that serve to make him great at the beginning of the play, and later, ironically, become key elements in his downfall. These aspects can be considered the internal causes of Othello’s tragic flaw. “Othello's nature is all one piece. His trust, where he trusts, is absolute.
This character is so noble, Othello's feelings and actions follow so inevitably from it and from the forces brought to bear on it, and his sufferings are so heart-rending, that he stirs a passion of mingled love and pity which readers feel for no other hero in Shakespeare, and to which not even Mr Swinburne can do more than justice. Yet there are some critics and not a few readers who cherish a grudge against him. They do not merely think that in the later stages of his temptation he showed a certain obtuseness, and that, to speak pedantically, he acted with unjustifiable precipitance and violence; no one, I suppose, denies that. But, even when they admit that he was not of a jealous temper, they consider that he was "easily jealous"; they seem to think that it was inexcusable in him to feel any suspicion of his wife at all; and they blame him for never suspecting Iago or asking him for evidence. I refer to this attitude of mind chiefly in order to draw attention to certain points in the story. It comes partly from inattention (for Othello did suspect Iago and did ask him for evidence); partly from a misconstruction of the text which makes Othello appear jealous long before he really is so; [Endnote 2] and partly from failure to realise certain essential facts. I will begin with these.
In William Shakespeare’s Othello, the tragic protagonist allows himself to become swept away with his emotions putting aside his responsibility to maintain a level head as a general in the Venetian army while under the influence of a malicious villain disguised as a trustworthy confidant. In this play, Shakespeare utilizes Iago’s immorality and premeditated actions to emphasize the way in which Othello’s fatal flaws prevented him from seeing the veracity of the situation.
Shakespeare conveys Iago's evil in many ways throughout Othello, and shows the methods that Iago uses in order to make Othello trust him. These methods obviously work, shown by the fact that he is repeatedly called honest; I will be commenting on these throughout my essay. He is much like the character 'Vice' from 'miracle plays' of the 16 and 17th Century that tell the audience what their plan is, and so they all become fellow conspirators in a way. This was done well in the production I saw in Manchester, as the actor playing Iago was good and convincing at talking to the crowd and making us realise that it is the enemy within we should fear most.
Othello is, without a doubt, one of Shakespeare’s most tragic heroes. He fills every sense of the word, beginning as a character nearly without flaws but evolving into a misled, pitiful disgrace whose sense of justice has been warped by the darkness of Iago. Even the flaws he is stricken with are those that may seem praise-worthy in some. Throughout the entirety of the play Othello has one supreme goal, subconscious or otherwise, in mind: As a general and as a man, he desires to rule militarily, socially, and romantically, with justice and without passion. This ‘passion’ refers to the calmness and balanced judgment required of such a figure as Othello. When we first meet Othello in person, he is immediately stricken as our hero. He loves with all of his soul, lives to uphold justice, and apparently governs without emotion tainting his mind. However, as the play continues, he degrades into less of a paragon and into a shell of a hero struck down by tragedy. His jealousy is spurred on by that which he vowed to never let rule him; his passion. Othello becomes little more than a puppet on a string, a powerful sword swung by Iago’s arm.
Othello’s personality was shaped largely by war and his pride as a capable soldier. He was intelligent and strong enough to live through countless battles and lead troops into war with successful results. Even Iago, who hates Othello for passing him over for the lieutenant position, can not deny Othello’s noble yet naïve nature, which he explains to Roderigo, “The Moor is of a free and open nature” (Act 1 Scene 3 390). However, as Iago continually hints to Othello that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio, more of his negative personality traits begin to show up. Doubt, mistrust, jealousy and rage all grew with Iago’s hints and led him to believe that his wife had damaged his reputation by being unfaithful to him. In the beginning of Othello, Othello betted on his life that Desdemona loved him and would never betray him and by the end of Shakespeare’s story, he suffocates and kills his wife out of honor in order to preserve his reputation and sense of self. He killed her not only out of a sense of duty, but also because of how hurt and betrayed he felt about her perceived infidelity. Therefore, Othello represents the good and the bad side of human nature by being intelligent, loving, open, and honorable and the bad by doubting his wife, exhibiting jealousy, anger and
The Emotions of Othello The motion of this play was based on the relationship or the friendships between Othello, Iago, and Cassio. Although the women in this book played a large role in adding to the vengeful, powerful feel in this play, it all ceased from the relationship between the three men. This play was filled with many different emotions, given by each of the characters when they interacted with each other. The emotions that mainly evolved in this play were: Power, jealousy, revenge and very questionable love between the characters. This story shows how power is such a strong desire of people, that some will stop at nothing to get it and hurting people is an option if they have to do it. This all began with Othello, who is the main character in this book. Othello was a Moor and a General in the Venetian army. He was a very powerful man who made large decisions, one decision which he made changed his life forever. Othello was very trustworthy and trusted. He had so much trust in the people that he was close to, that it affected his life and he believed many things that he should not have. Because of an overabundance of trust and belief in others, this caused him to become a rageful, jealous man. All of his better characteristics were pushed aside deep down in his soul and allowed the worst to get the best of him. All of this jealous rage in Othello came from the lies that the manipulative, evil Iago had told Othello of his wife Desdemona.