Custom Written Term Papers: Evil in Othello -- Othello essays

Evil in Othello What can compare to the satanic evidence in William Shakespeares tragic drama Othello? The sinister aspect of the routine is so heavy at times that it has a depressing put together on the audience. In the essay Wit and Witchcraft an Approach to Othello Robert B. Heilman unveils the evil awaiting the reader in Othello Reason as an ally of evil is a subject to which Shakespeare keeps returning, as if fascinated, only if in different thematic forms as he explores different counter-forces. . . . Although Iago, as we saw, does not take seriously the honor power of love, he does not fail to let us spang what he does take seriously. When, in his fake oath of loyalty to wrongd Othello, he vows The execution of his wit, hands, heart (III.3.466), Iagos words give a clue to his equity his heart is his malice, his hands literally wound Cassio and kill Roderigo, and his wit is the disposition that creates all the strategy. (338) By an extraordinary composition of cha racter Shakespeare has made Iago, literally or symbolically, share in all these modes of evil. And in Iago he has dramatized Dantes summary analysis For where the instrument of the mind is joined to evil go out and potency, men can make no defense against it. But he has also dramatized the hidden springs of evil action, the urgency and passion and immediacy of it. He contemplates too the evildoers potency and mans defencelessness but these he interprets tragically by making them, not absolute, but partly dependent on the flaws or desire of the victims themselves. (343) First of all, Iagos very words paint him for what he is. Robert Di Yanni in Character Revealed with Dialogue states that the evil antagonist rev... ...rizona Quarterly (Spring 1956), pp.5-16. 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.e iu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wayne, Valerie. historic Differences Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. The pleasant Qualities of Othello. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.