n Shakespeare's play Othello many issues are undertaken and explored. The three women play a vital role in this. Only one of the women in this play survives. All the women have no separate identity within the play; all three are married or associated with a male character. Bianca is the mistress of Cassio, Emilia is married to Iago and Desdemona is married with Othello. According to the time that the play was written in and the general hierarchy within Venetian society men hold all the power and
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March 2016 End Goal of Writing Othello When studying Othello, no analyst or reader can deny that the masterpiece written by Shakespeare is truly remarkable. However, there is debate as to whether the play was written to tell a story about a war hero who ascends to the peak of Italian military ranks and fell off due to his insecurities, or for Shakespeare to present an allegory narrating the chaos in seventeenth century England. The assertion made declaring Othello to be an allegory is very compelling
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Shakespeare himself once described the state of humanity, “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” He applied this profound observation to the characters of his play Othello, the story of an interracial marriage destroyed by manipulation. In this tragedy, the title character Othello falls from his status as a respected, even glorified, leader to an incredulous murderer, while his “friend” Iago thrives on Othello’s downfall. Shakespeare’s original script illustrates Othello’s vulnerability and
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In what ways does Shakespeare explore human weakness in Othello? Shakespeare explores human weakness in his playwrite “Othello” through themes of power, jealousy, love, seduction, and as in most of his plays, through tragedy with murder or suicide. He also explores human weakness through tales of betrayal, revenge, evil, and racial discrimination. He uses his characters to show varying characteristics of each and how they fit into a complex existence. With the play opening with Iago’s discussion
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of his novel. There are only three women in the play Othello. They are Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca. The behaviour of the women tends to present them strongly to reflect their ideological expectations within the Venetian society as well as the Elizabethan society. The women are expected to unselfishly devote their lives to their husbands. Desdemona, Emila and Bianca’s relationship with the male characters and their status is shown by Shakespeare and that all three women have different roles no matter
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The catastrophe of Othello Othello is a combination of greatness and weakness in his own words “An honorable murderer” (Shakespeare V.ii, 295). He is a general in the venetian defence forces and although a foreigner from Africa, he has won this post by excellence in the field of war. Othello is characterized by his plainspoken, honest (perhaps even naïve) nature, which, together with his status as an outsider, leaves him vulnerable to the plots of his standard-bearer, Iago, to make him
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difficult to notice if you are not expecting it. Irony plays a great role in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello. Most of the irony in the play relates to the main villain in the play, Iago, who is motivated by his jealousy. Iago is jealous of Othello’s military success and Cassio being promoted to Othello’s lieutenant position instead of himself. Iago plans to take revenge against Othello by manipulating Cassio and Desdemona, who is Othello’s wife. Iago is a well respected character in the play
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Does Shakespeare reinforce or question contemporary attitudes to cultural outsiders in 'Othello' and The Merchant of Venice? In the plays the Merchant of Venice and Othello, Shakespeare explores the effects of racial oppression and attitudes to race in general. The idea of cultural outsiders is one of the main themes present in the plays. 'Culture' is the customs and social behaviour of particular groups of people and societies and an outsider is a person who does not belong in a particular
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Shakespeare’s “Othello” is a whirlwind of a story as it follows the emotional roller-coaster of an army general in the midst of love. The role-character, Othello, is an articulate, passionate and intelligent African-American who finds himself unable to trust the love that he and his wife Desdemona have for one another. Although Othello seemed to many as the epitome of strength and confidence, every superman has their kryptonite. Othello was punctual, knew just the right words to say at the precise
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Othello the Moor of Venice: Race and Jealousy Questions for Study and Discussion Act 1 1. How does Shakespeare present the world of Venice in the first act, and how does he construct the interactions of his central characters (Iago, Othello, and Desdemona) with that Venetian world and with each other?How are these interactions complicated by the fact that Othello is a Moor, (and we'll have to puzzle out what exactly that means) and that Desdemona is a young woman? 2. What sort of person
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