Martin have often sorrowfully or gleefully talked of ‘killing off’ their own characters for the amusement of others Iago wishes to ruin Othello’s marriage for his own amusement or, in Hazlitt’s phrase, ‘stabs men in the dark to prevent ennui’. The whole thing is really, of course, Iago’s play, as many critics have observed: if Othello is the tragic lead in the drama, Iago is the stage-manager, director, and dramatist all wrapped up in one. Iago and Cassio are on the watch together Iago gets Cassio to drink, knowing that he cannot hold his liquor. All should be joyful, and Othello is celebrating the happiness of his recent marriage. Much of Othello proceeds like a comedy that takes a very dark turn at the end, when it becomes apparent that Othello will not be reconciled with Desdemona, and that the sexual jealousy and suspicion he has been made to feel are too deep-rooted to be wiped out. Othellos herald enters, to proclaim that the Turks are not going to attack. They are arranged with black forming a North-East to South-West. He is, in a sense, a ‘self made man’, the. The play deals with interracial marriage. Othello is like a hero of the ancient world in that he is not a man like us, but a man recognized as extraordinary. Shakespeare’s Othello is a Moor, a Black man - indeed, one of the first Black heroes in English literature. Othello is also unlike many of Shakespeare’s other great tragedies, with the possible exception of Romeo and Juliet, in that its plot could easily have been co-opted for a comedy rather than a tragedy, where the confusion created by Iago’s plotting is resolved, the villain is punished, and the hero and heroine are reconciled to live happily ever after.Ĭompare, in this connection, Iago’s role in Othello with that of the villainous Don John in the earlier comedy, Much Ado about Nothing (a play we have analysed here). Like Iago, Don John wants to wreck the (upcoming) marriage between Claudio and Hero, and sets about convincing Claudio that his bride-to-be cannot be trusted.īut in Much Ado, Hero’s fidelity is proved and Don John’s villainy is exposed, and we have a comedy. Othello will rarely have felt more striking or powerful to a modern audience. The board will start with 2 black discs and 2 white discs at the centre of the board. In Sidney’s view, tragedy provokes the affects of admiration and commiseration and so demonstrates the uncertainty of this world. ![]() In Harold Goddard’s fine phrase, he is ‘a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality’ (this phrase is quoted enthusiastically by Harold Bloom in his Shakespeare: The Invention Of The Human). Significance of interior settings private and domestic places. ![]() He is a villain, but a charming two-faced one. What are the two types of location in Othello Interior (private) Exterior (public) Significance of exterior locations exposes the significance of Renaissance ideologies of reputation, moral codes and social class. Part of the genius of Shakespeare’s characterisation of Iago is that he makes him a convincing ensign to Othello, a loyal servant to the Moorish warrior, even while he is plotting Othello’s downfall.
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