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William Shakespeare was a brilliant wordsmith and his uses of different types of literary. devices crossed the spectrum from different sentence arrangements to double meanings, from foreshadowing to metaphors. Sickness is seen as the epitome of evil in some cases because it is a vile state, treated by some rather cruel treatments to purge the soul of impurities. It seems that if one had made mistakes in life, ailments would ensue and you would be punished by getting sick. Shakespeare does not use maladies to show that a person has done some evil deed but rather as imagery for plot development. In each play, a certain type of sickness dominates over the rest. Hamlet reveals the truths in his society of people, Macbeth exaggerates the deed he is about to do or the deeds he has done, and Othello exposes the steps some take to avoid seeing the true facts when we prefer to stay blind to them all.
Even before these characters go mad, there is some outside influence. The mentality of a murderer is not always from his own doing and we see that in Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet. There seems to be some sort of outside influence that presents the idea to them or inadvertently. coaxes them to do the dirty deed. In the case of Othello, he is slowly pushed over the edge of insanity as Iago consistently tells him that his wife is being unfaithful to him. He even states that it is Iago who knows what human nature because “this fellow’s of exceeding honesty,/ and knows all qualities, with a learn’d spirit,/ of human dealings” . Iago spoon feeds Othello these lies and Othello becomes Iago’s little puppet. Othello is clearly already fragile from all the rumors he has heard about his wife and he is not in a proper state of mind. Othello is does not just become mentally sick but also has a very weak will and Iago uses this to put Othello “into a jealousy so strong/ That judgment cannot cure.” . He goes insane not only because Iago tricks him into believing his...William...