Critical Study of Othello

1919 Words8 Pages
William Shakespeare’s Othello derived from the original Aristotelian views of a tragedy, pursues the tragic downfall of a great and noble man, through the manipulative and scheming efforts of another ultimately causing the futile destruction of life and order. Othello is a text that incorporates the themes and issues that inextricably existed in its time, in today’s society and beyond. The texts central issues of racism, evil versus good, manipulation, women’s roles and the worship of heroes are based on the human experience and are therefore timeless and can easily be appropriated into the contexts of contemporary society and remain exceedingly relevant.
Reputation
Among the various themes explored in the texts is reputation which also relates to pride. This play has an abundance of characters that progress alongside the theme pride and reputation. This includes Othello, Brabantio, Cassio and Iago. All of these characters depict that their reputation is as important as their pride through the way they react towards the situations that arise to them. In Othello there is a change in pride for most characters. Characters like Iago with little pride let their thirst for pride overtake their judgment about what is right. Characters like Othello with a great deal of pride are easily manipulated, because they are so proud. Othello lets pride get the best of him, and this clouds his judgment to such an extent that he ends up murdering his wife because he falsely believes that she has been unfaithful to him and he feels humiliated as a result.
Throughout Othello, an ordered structure is placed on this play to convey a sense of order as was required in an Elizabethan context owing to the significance of order, hierarchy and class. This can be seen at the end of the play when there is a need for Othello to be redeemed in the audiences’ eyes hence even Othello as a
Open Document