Othello: its Themes Essay -- Othello essays

Othello its Themes In the Shakespearean tragedy Othello how many themes are there? And which ones predominate. This paper seeks to elucidate the reader on this subject. In her book, Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections generally on the Tragedies, Maynard Mack comments on the seeming predominance of the theme of loss in the drama In any event, what comes to us most forcefully from the stage in Othello is not mystery but the agony of loss, loss all the more tragic, in some instances, for not being inevitable. Brabantio loses (in every sense) his much-loved and child and eventually dies of grief. Cassio in a drunken moment loses his soldiers discipline, then his lieutenancy and his cherished comradeship with Othello. Othello, in turn, losing under Iagos development his ability to distinguish the individual woman he married from the standard cynical stereotype, abandons with it all pride in his profession together with the self-command that make him the man he was. And Desdemona, t hrough no real fault of her own, loses the magical handkerchief. (131) The theme of loss, however, is not the theme on which the play opens. Lily B. Campbell in Shakespeares sad Heroes indicates that detest is the theme on which this play opens It is then on a theme of hate that the play opens. It is a hate of inveterate anger. It is a hate that is bound up with envy. Othello has preferred to be his lieutenant a military theorist, one Michael Cassio, over the experienced soldier Iago, to whom has fallen instead the post of his Moorships ancient. Roderigo questions Iago Thou toldst me thou didst hold him in thy hate. And the reply is a torrent of proof of the hatred for Othello... ...Ferguson, Francis. Two Worldviews Echo Each Other. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. reprinting from Shakespeare The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p. n.p., 1970. Gardner, Helen. Othello A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Cl arice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from The Noble Moor. British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955. Jorgensen, Paul A. William Shakespeare The Tragedies. Boston Twayne Publishers, 1985. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.