Othello: the Abnormal Behaviors and Happenings Essay -- Othello essays

Othello the Abnormal Behaviors and Happenings The audience finds in William Shakespeares tragic drama Othello a curious collection of abnormal behaviors and happenings. In this paper let us examine in detail the abnormalities. In her book, Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard mackintosh defends the Moor as one who is not necessarily the victim of a psychological deficiency, as some critics maintain What should be noticed in situation is that, essentially, Shakespeare invented Iago set him down in his dramatis personae with the single epithet a villain and devoted most of the plays lines and scenes to showing in detail the cunning, malignancy, and inhuman treatment of his nature, including the cowardice of his murder of his wife. It seems to me therefore impossible to believe, as some recent critics would have us do, that the root causes of Othellos ruin are to be desire in some profound moral or psychological deficiency peculiar to him. (137) A more obvious example of the irregular appears in the lease of Iago. The abnormal behavior of the ancient is partly rooted in his misogynism. In Historical contrarietys Misogyny and Othello Valerie Wayne implicates Iago in sexism. He is one who is almost incapable of whatsoever other perspective on women than a sexist one Iagos worry that he cannot do what Desdemona asks implies that his dis eulogy of women was candid and easily produced, while the praise requires labour and inspiration from a source beyond himself. His insufficiency is more surprising because elsewhere in the play Iago appears as a master rhetorician, unless as Bloch explains, the misogynistic writer uses rhetoric as a means of renouncing it, and... ...normal psychology. (89-90) WORKS CITED Bevington, David, ed. William Shakespeare four Tragedies. New York Bantam Books, 1980. Campbell, Lily B. Shakespeares Tragic Heroes. New York Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1970. Coles, Blanche. Shakespeares Four Giants. Ri ndge, New Hampshire Richard Smith Publisher, 1957. 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. Wayne, Valerie. Historical Differences Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991.