To what extent do you consider the character Othello to be responsible for his own downfall?

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To what extent do you consider the character Othello to be responsible for his own downfall?

‘Othello’ is a Shakespearian play of tragedy illustrating the downfall of a high ranking army general. Othello, a noble Venetian moor, becomes jealous and insecure after a soldier of lower rank, Iago leads him to believe that his wife Desdemona is having an affair. Othello acts without thinking too many times and without knowing it lets Iago manipulate him creating a downfall within himself due to both Iago and his own flaws to the point where he murders his wife. After he realizes his mistake he kills himself and lays next to his wife’s body.

As the play opens we are immediately introduced to the hostility of Iago against Othello. Iago has been appointed as servant to Othello instead of the more prestigious position of Lieutenant which Iago would have preferred but was given to Michael Cassio. This leads Iago to feel betrayed by Othello. Consequently Iago makes plans for Othello and forshadows his plans to Roderigo his right hand man. “O sir, content you. I follow him to serve my turn upon him”. Roderigo is a usual character by Shakespeare because he is an unsuspecting person that can help Iago but is also bribed tricked and manipulated towards the end of the play by him.  Shakespeare wrote Othello with renaissance view. Around this time people had just started to believe in free will rather than the Greek view where everything was controlled by Gods. Thus to Shakespeare, Harmatia, a Greek idea of tragic flaw, is changed from human ignorance to a character defect in the hero himself. Hence the terrible consequences are not the result of angry gods playing tricks on humans, instead they are the result of character defects which lead to sinful behavior and subsequent downfall.

A tragedy is serious theme with an unhappy ending as opposed to comedy which is light usually with a happy ending. To define tragedy accurately we need to indentify the elements that make up one. These are revenge, ambition and De Casibus. Revenge obviously is a motive for tragedy and we can see this with Iago’s behavior after not getting the job of Leiutenant and decides to plot against Othello. De Casibus is the main cause of tragedy in Othello. It means a fall from greatness which is evident at the beginning of the play as Othello is presented as a high class, high status respectable moor. He speaks in an eloquent manner and is a respected army general but by the end of the play we can see his fall from greatness as his speech is manipulative and very much like Iago’s.  He is a typical tragic hero.

We can see the similarity in speech between Othello and Iago by analyzing the way that Iago speaks and how Othello picks up this tongue during Iago’s manipulation. Firstly we will look at how Iago uses animal imagery and violence in his first step of manipulating Othello by ruining the clean image that Othello sees of Desdemona. In his shrewd style of persuading his master we see the transition of Othello’s way of mind as he becomes obsessed with the lies and falls into the traps set out by Iago. The moment Iago realizes he has Othello under his hold, he goes on feeding information and untruths to Othello which takes him further  into an emotional struggle. “Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys”. This refers to both Cassio and Desdemona’s actions towards each other behind Othello’s back. In addition, through the animals that were used to describe Cassio and Desdemona, Iago takes every act of love from Desdemona as an act of deceiving Othello. Also the two animals used ; goats and monkeys are allegedly lascivious and foul creatures. Shortly after Iago says this Othello is welcoming Lodovico to Cyprus. He clearly in a bad frame of mind after he has been told about Desdemona by Iago, when he sarcastically says him “you are welcome sir, to Cyprus- goats and monkeys. This quote is ironic because it shows Othello using the same choice of words and animal imagery that Iago used when speaking to him.  It shows that Othello is not thinking straight as Lodovico and the venetian attendants are stunned by his change “Is this the noble moor who our senate call all in all sufficient!. They are stunned and appalled by Othello using this language and their reaction represents the change in Othello’s speech.

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Throughout the play, but of most importance when Iago is manipulating Othello, Shakespeare sets and maintains a fast speed throughout the play creating a theatrical effect on the audience. It is cleverly used to the extent that Othello has no time to think of his actions or Iago’s, and he has no time to talk to other characters, as we see in both act 3 and the beginning of act 4, most of the play in this period (onstage) is mainly between Othello and Iago and, as we know, Iago is always manipulating Othello at every opportunity that he gets. ...

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