Othello

Othello

Although Othello has frequently been praised as William Shakespeare's most unified tragedy, many critics have found the central character to be the most unheroic of William Shakespeare's heroes. Some have found him stupid beyond redemption; others have described him as a passionate being overwhelmed by powerful emotion; still others have found him self-pitying and insensitive to the enormity of his actions. Yet all of these denigrations pale before the excitement and sympathy generated for the noble soldier in the course of the play (Vaughan, 2006).

As a “Moor,” or black man, Othello is an exotic, a foreigner from a fascinating and mysterious land. Certainly he is a passionate man, but he is not devoid of sensitivity. Rather, his problem is that he is thrust into the sophisticated and highly cultivated context of Renaissance Italy, a land that had a reputation in the England of Shakespeare's time for connivance and intrigue. In Act 1 Scene 3, Shakespeare uses the racial difference to many effects: most obviously, to emphasize Othello's difference from the society in which he finds himself and to which he allies himself through marriage; more subtly and ironically to heighten his tragic stance against the white Iago, the embodiment of evil in the play (Nevo, 2005). More than anything, Othello is natural man confronted with the machinations and contrivances of an overly civilized society. His instincts are to be loving and trusting, but he is cast into a society where these natural virtues would have made him extremely vulnerable (Heilman, 2006).

The prime source of that vulnerability in Act 1 Scene 3 is personified in the figure of Iago, perhaps Shakespeare's consummate villain. Iago is so evil by nature that he does not even need any motivation for his antagonism toward Othello. He has been passed over for promotion, but that is clearly a pretext for a malignant nature whose hatred for Othello needs no specific grounds. It is Othello's candor, openness, and spontaneous, generous love that Iago finds offensive. His suggestion that Othello has seduced his own wife is an even flimsier fabrication to cover the essential corruption of his nature (Calderwood, 2008).

Iago sees other human beings only as victims or tools. He is the classical Renaissance atheist—an intelligent man, beyond moral scruple, who finds pleasure in the corruption of the virtuous and the abuse of the pliable. That he brings himself into danger is of no consequence, ...