William Shakespeare wrote wonderfully-crafted plays, suitable not only for his time period, but for today’s audiences as well. Shakespeare spread knowledge, and opened up the doors to subjects mostly seen as forbidden, or just not spoken about in his time. His social commentaries gave voice to those who did not have one in his society. His plays boast timeless themes such as love, jealousy, corruption, and and forbidden love, all themes that register in modern society. Shakespeare’s Othello is a play about jealousy, and how it overtakes and destroys every other feeling in one’s body. Tim Blake Nelson’s film “O” is a loose, modernized adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. This translation allows us to understand and interpret what Shakespeare wanted to say, without actually understanding the dialect of his time.
“O” is told from the setting of a modern preparatory school. Othello is represented by Odin James, the only African-American
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The four hundred year time difference makes the social and political commentary differ however. While the themes of jealousy, race, and love, are everlasting in our world, the way we look at and how one feels about these themes have changed. A black man like Othello would rarely, if ever be seen with a white woman like Desdemona in the 1600’s, but in the early 2000’s interracial couples were more prominent, and more normal than not. The world has also been through a feminist social change, making the faithful wife who belongs to her father, than her groom, more obsolete. Women were taking a stand and defending themselves against men who said they couldn’t. Desi in the film verbally fights against Odin and his jealous remarks, and physically tries to fight his attack. While these changes are evident, and expected through a modernization of Shakespeare’s play, Nelson carries across the message, don’t believe everything you
...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.
Othello as A Tragedy of Outsiders The most obvious way of being an outsider in Othello is through being a foreigner, and a non-Venetian. Othello and Cassio are both outsiders in this sense, Othello is a black man, a "Moor", and Cassio is a "Florentine". Othello begins in Venice, in Shakespeare's time the great commercial centre of the western world. Venice was the place of great hustle and bustle, merchants and tradesmen from other lands were commonplace, and yet we see throughout the play how Othello and Cassio are ridiculed. Cassio is degraded as he is from Florence; Iago calls him "a great arithmetician".
...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.
The topic of betrayal and manipulation is a common theme in the play Othello. A numerous amount of characters in the play betray others, and also themselves. From planning affairs that ruin marriages and friendships, to not trusting their significant other. Ways that the play Othello brings out the theme of betrayal is Othello and Desdemona being the one’s who were most affected by Iagos betrayal with their marriage, Iago plotting to put the handkerchief with Michael Cassio, and the death of those who either betrayed, or were betrayed.
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.
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet is a film that converts Shakespeare’s famous play into a present-day setting. The film transforms the original texts into modern notions, whilst still employing Shakespearean language. Compared to Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, Luhrmann’s picture is easier for a teenage audience to understand and relate to because of his modernisations. Despite the passing of four centuries Shakespeare’s themes of love, hate, violence, family and mortality remain the same regardless of the setting.
“Communication to a relationship is like oxygen to life without it…it dies.” This quote, once said by Tony Gaskins, a motivational speaker and author, relates to Shakespeare 's play, Othello, because the lack of communication between Othello and his wife, Desdemona, causes him to kill her. Othello’s motivation to kill his wife was manipulated by Iago’s manipulation into believing she was having an affair with Cassio, Othello’s second in command in the military. Iago’s relationship with his wife, Emilia, also contains this similar lack of communication because he believes Emilia has been unfaithful to him multiple times. The men not communicating their beliefs to the women around them, leads the men into believing other’s rumors. This miscommunication
Othello, from the onset, is shown to us a play of love and jealousy. There is however more to this play than just love and jealousy; there is underlying racism, hate, deception, pride, and even sexism between these pages. Othello is a transcendent play, one that will survive the perils of time simply because it is still relevant. Even today, over 400 years later, there are still issues of racism and sexism. Hate is as natural as love in humans and Othello gets right to the root of that. We witness this from the very first scene, “…you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse/ you’ll have your nephews neigh to you” (I.i.112-14); to the very last, “Moor she was chaste. She loved thee, cruel Moor” (V.ii.258). Moor however is used as an insult all throughout the play; not so much the word itself but the feel of the word. Between these pages we see many different ways as to how the cultural differences between Othello and the other characters.
The Tragedy of Othello William Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, from the sixteenth century is an excellent example of Renaissance humanism. “A poet of unparalleled genius, Shakespeare emerged during the golden age of England under the rule of Elizabeth I.”(Fiero 3:98) He produced comedies, tragedies, romances and histories. According to Webster’s pocket dictionary, a tragedy is defined as a form of drama in which the protagonist comes to a disaster, as through a flaw in character, and in which the ending is usually marked by pity or sorrow. I would like to concentrate on the character Iago and the theme of deceit.
In Othello, the titular character is a visible minority who holds a high position in the army but falls victim to manipulation by his seemingly trustworthy ensign and friend. While the theme of jealousy remains the main reason for the eventual death of both Emilia and Desdemona, the preservation of honour and reputation also fuel the characters’ actions toward the women. Therefore, the men in the play act cruelly and unjustly in order to defend their honour. While the conflicts between the Othello and Iago seem to be due to jealousy, the play suggests that the men are scared of the women and their power to destroy their honour and reputation.
In conclusion, studying Othello’s color evokes much more than mere racial category, but the entire chronology of human discrimination. It is evident through both contextual and critical insight that Othello is an indispensable textual work. Philip Koln declares it, “a cultural seismograph, measuring the extent and force of gender, racial, and class upheavals in any society that performs it”(Distiller,340). The evolution of Othello’s critical responses and representations serve to amplify its importance tenfold as it successfully charts the beginning of humanity’s departure from xenophobic tendencies toward a more global community.
William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello boasts quite a little list of abnormalities in both occurrences and personal behavior.
While there have been a great number of changes in the world since Shakespeare wrote Othello, there are a few truths about humanity and society that remain true. Othello is notorious for it’s examination of race, but is not given enough credit for its observations of gender. Iago embodies masculine gender roles in a severe and exaggerated way, allowing his desire for proving his masculinity to corrupt him morally. Iago then turns and uses his own fears of inadequacy against Othello as the root of his revenge and to improve his own self-image. Desdemona is hurt most by the need for gender roles, which ultimately ends up in her death. The characters in Othello are severely harmed by the gender roles they feel the need to adhere to.
In Othello, a book by William Shakespeare, Othello's complex character is revealed through diverse concepts such as imagery, figurative language, and most of all conflict within self. Shakespeare demonstrates these elements in line - 300 when Othello compares himself to a toad while staying that he would "rather live upon the vapor of a dungeon." Before line 300, readers see Othello face internal conflict when he reveals his thoughts, "Happy, for I am black and have not those soft parts of conversation." Soon after, we get a sense of superiority that comes from Othello. This adds to the complexity of Othello's character.
Othello’s speech to Brabantio and the Duke in Act 1, Scene 3 is of major importance in describing Othello’s personality. This long speech, found in lines 149 to 196, shows Othello for the first time as a person with depth and less as a soldier. This speech is important to the book as a whole because it is a testimony to the strength of the love between Othello and Desdemona, which will later play a major role in the plot. It is also one of the first times that we see Othello trying to influence his audience with his words. The speech given by Othello is intended to convince Brabantio that Desdemona is with him willfully, and not by “spells and medicines bought of montebanks” (line 74).