Category: Literature Review

Marilyn French asserts that Shakespeare only constructs two types of women, the “virtuous subhuman or deceiving subhuman.” In conjugation with the Elizabethan expectation of an “acceptable version of the feminine” woman, a woman who is passive, obedient and chaste, Shakespeare has constructed Desdemona as a “virtuous subhuman.” This supports the feminist criticism that “literary representations…

Othello is a tragedy. But what qualities does it possess to qualify it as such? The key difference between comedy and tragedy is the ability to reconcile and tolerate the inevitable foibles of the human condition. In Othello nothing is tolerated, and nothing is reconciled. Instead, Iago provides the spark and fuel to ignite a…

Shakespeare’s Othello is indeed a powerful and impressive figure who is tragically brought down by Iago, a villain who goes undetected through his great drive and intellect until the very end of the play. Despite his shortcomings — of which a lack of self-knowledge is the most glaring — Othello remains “great of heart” (as…

“Iago, you have done well that men must lay their murders on your neck” [5:2 line 166, p.157]. This ironic tone is akin to that of “Is this the promised end?” Can it be anything but ironic when the words are spoken in front of a tragic scene of corpses, as is the case at…

The first scene of Othello’s fifth act, unlike those before it, is dominated by physical violence, with Iago at the centre playing the “puppet master”. This scene reminds the audience of the capabilities Iago possesses in controlling the more malleable characters, namely Roderigo. Shakespeare also builds on the theme of proof with regard to his…

Shakespeare weaves an intricate web ensnaring the characters in The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice. A handkerchief, a small and seemingly insignificant square of fabric, exerts magical powers over the characters as it transfers from person to person in the play. Six characters take possession of the handkerchief. Three (Othello, Desdemona, and Emilia)…

Separating qualities common to one ‘set’ or ‘type’ of Shakespeare’s plays which are not common to the plays as a whole is a difficult task: it would no doubt be possible to find evidence of any feature uniting ‘the Tragedies’ within any of Shakespeare’s plays if one looked hard enough. This is not surprising if…

In the way reality is theorized, the metaphysical has the potential to replace the empirical as the dominating approach to understanding reality. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is intrigued by the fluidity of reality, particularly in how contradicting elements of perception such as truth and suspicion, and proof and conjecture, can be interchangeable. He applies this…

Shakespeare’s Othello (Shakespeare, 1604) is a tragedy that unfolds based on the actions and language of one character: Iago. As a result, the plot is linear, yet the play manages to maintain a multidimensional effect. Shakespeare uses the language of the characters to achieve this multifaceted quality. Through the use of language (specifically Iago, Othello,…

“I must weep, / But they are cruel tears,” says Othello near the end of his soliloquy in Act Five, Scene Two, right before killing Desdemona. Traditional Shakespearean murderers do not shed tears prior to killing their victim; in Shakespeare’s Othello, however, the Moor is an ambivalent man justifying his actions through a cathartic release…