The Significance of Power in William Shakespeare's Othello, Gwen Harwood’s “In the Park”, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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Recommended: What's power in literature

Texts explore many aspects of power or lack of power including the potential of the individual or groups to use this power to enrich or challenge other people communities or ideologies to what extent is this true of Othello.

Power and lack of power have the ability to enrich, even challenge other peoples communities and beliefs. Shakespeare’s Othello is one example of a text that expresses the potency of Power and its abilities to enrich and/or Challenge. Power can be illustrated within a text through: The Power of words, the power of racial standing, the power of human emotion to overcome reason, the powerlessness of women and finally the power of reputation. We can also see these aspects power represented in the Sonnet “In the park” by Gwen Harwood.

The power of words has the ability to to enhance and empower an individual, In relation to Shakespeare’s Othello; Iago can be seen as a symbol for the power of words. Iago is cunning, deceitful and intelligent in many ways the antagonist of the play. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to include the audience on Iago’s plot to manipulate and destroy Othello. This is evident early on within the play through the quote mentioned above mentioned above “I am not what I am”. This clearly states to the audience Iago’s true intent whilst hiding it from the other characters challenging their beliefs of him being “Honest Iago”. The power of words is the source of Iago’s manipulation enabling him to not only manipulate Othello but also every other character within the play.

The power of racial standing plays a part in your role in society and the level of acceptance you receive. In Shakespeare’s Othello forms of racial prejudice against a person can be witnessed through Othello, the main charact...

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...o come to reason with the death of his father we see the deterioration of his mental state, this is demonstrated through his acts of self harm upon his body over periods of time. This is truly the example of the power of human emotion to overcome reason. The author of the novel and director of the film challenge the audience’s beliefs on loss hardship and struggle yet also enriching them in their awareness of mental issues surrounding Autism.

In conclusion the control and the abilities that power has can never be restricted to any number of pages. Whether it is Elizabethan England or New York city power has the ability to enrich and challenge even the most strong of beliefs and people. It is up to us to find out our power and use that to enrich the people around from the words of Tom Hanks (ELIC) “if things were easy to find, they wouldn't be worth finding”.

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