An Introduction to Othello

Shakespeare has long been considered the greatest dramatist the world has ever seen. This is despite the constant and continuous attempt by other great playwrights and critics alike to dethrone his claim to such a title. If we look at his plays we can see why. His life in England as a Catholic among Protestants, as a middle- class townsman among city-bred riff raff and nobility, as a gentleman who became rich to buy his rank, and as an actor who became a playwright and director who was successful to the point of becoming part owner of a theatre called the Globe, as well as becoming the powerful Queen Elizabeth’s and her successor King James’s favorite writer, equipped him for such a task. The personal ups and downs of his life, such as not having a classical education, marriage when young to a woman seven years older than him called Anne Hathaway, the death of a son Hamnet, a second love affair etc., also made him sensitive to many nuances that ably and ideally fit the dramatic. He was England’s Dante, doubtless, aiding and abetting his country’s swift rise by being the genius of its language and moving it towards a rich and plural form of democracy. His claim to greatness shines through every play of his but never more than in his famous tragedies. Of these, for long Othello has been a favorite in the Arab nations, partly because of the choice of a Moor for hero. Both in Merchant of Venice and in Othello we find a theme Shakespeare dwells on powerfully, perhaps due to his experiences as the member of a Catholic minority in England, the theme of the virtuous outsider. He constantly subverts British parochialism that was against the French, the Catholics, the Jews, the Arabs and the blacks in his many plays, often even overtly, as in Othello, by setting the scene elsewhere and openly laughing at the English by calling them all mad as in Hamlet. In this sense he was definitely a child of the Renaissance and aware that internationalism was the future path that should be taken. No playwright handles examining what virtue is and what being human means as deftly or in such glorious detail as Shakespeare does. While artists are often looked down upon for their morals by a sensation mongering public that tries to find out every detail of their lives to criticize unjustly, this does not mean that all other men are perfect or that artists are not moral in their art. The same holds true for Shakespeare. The play’s greatness lies in Shakespeare’s wizardry in weaving together a plot that goes far deeper than meets the eye in bringing into play the question of ancient, hidden antipathies regarding religion, race and class. Underlying this, even deeper , is the moral fabric that makes Othello succeed beyond all doubt, whereby Shakespeare warns men of their tendency to easily overlook their own faults yet to never forgive them in their partners of the fair sex. In a time when psychology and psychiatry were not yet born he studies Othello as an example of virtue that has in it a tragic flaw, the flaw of an inferiority complex which breeds suspicion that leads on to a murderous jealousy, to the point where he kills his own wife because he suspects her , though she is the one whom he loves more dearly than any man ever loved a woman. Shakespeare’s consummate study of Othello’s fall, while a masterpiece, has many a side to it seldom looked at. For instance, Iago, that perfect representation of evil in his “motiveless malignity, is able to bring about a tragedy of such colossal proportions only because of the swarthy Othello’s perception that in Desdemona’s society, because of his place of origin and the color of his skin , he is viewed as an outsider. The tragedy’s inception, thus, is not from Iago but from Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, who states at the outset of the play, when Desdemona elopes with Othello and the state stands by Othello’s and her wishes against his, that having fooled him though he was her father she would one day fool Othello too. The scene then shifts to the five main characters involved in the macabre drama that unfolds, namely Cassio ( the supposed suitor of Desdemona, according to Iago), Iago (the devil incarnate), Desdemona, Emilia (Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s maid in waiting) and Othello himself. Using a handkerchief his wife Emilia steals for him from Desdemona because she is her servant, Iago makes Othello believe that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him and is now in love with Cassio. The juxtapositions of place, race and color are once again subtly suggested. Desdemona is not only fair but she has golden hair and Cassio is quite handsome. Slowly convinced, Othello decides to take the helm of fate into his own hand, throwing all caution to the winds regarding the good sense of his actions, being tormented by anguish at the thought that Desdemona has been unfaithful, and he enters their bedroom one night in the tragic effort to bring things to a final head. Watch the final scene we understand both what happened on that fateful night and Shakespeare’s unquestionable greatness in the English language and the dramatic art, not to mention his great humanism