Othello as a Tragic Character in William Shakespeare's Play

1668 Words4 Pages

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. Othello

is summoned to Cyprus to fight the Turkish army and takes Desdemona

with him. There, Iago makes Othello believe that his wife is having an

affair with Cassio and renders him into a state of depression. Othello

goes mad with anger and ends up murdering Desdemona in bed. When he

finds out Iago was lying he falls into a state of despair and stabs

himself.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle studied tragedies and identified a

list of arguments that a classical tragedy had in it. Aristotle argued

that classical tragedies have a protagonist, who is usually a man, who

is rich and powerful and is respected in society. The protagonist

makes a mistake or error of judgement, which makes him fall from power

and loose his identity. Aristotle said that the ending might be sad

but does not necessarily have to be negative, as there is always hope.

We are going to see if Shakespeare has managed to portray Othello as a

tragic character by using these arguments.

In Aristotle's theory of tragedy there must be a protagonist or a main

character. Shakespeare has put a protagonist in the play, Othello, as

he as named the p...

... middle of paper ...

...e learns

a moral lesson in life. He does this by making Iago so twisted and

evil that when the audience sees what has happened they know not to

interfere each other's life and love for it can end in tragedy.

Although Aristotle's theory of tragedy is widely used to analyse

literature, in my opinion a tragedy is something that's ends sad and

depressing but not necessarily negative. Shakespeare has also

accomplished this. Although we are sad that the innocent Desdemona and

the virtuous Othello both died, we are happy that Iago's deceitful

plan is foiled and he is caught and arrested. This shows us that there

is hope, as the villain doesn't always escape. This also shows that

good prevails over evil, as the love that Othello had for Desdemona

made sure that Iago's plan did not work and so Iago couldn't come into

power.

More about Othello as a Tragic Character in William Shakespeare's Play

Open Document