Othello

Commentary: Othello by William Shakespeare
The fragment comes from Othello, the play written by William Shakespeare around 1603 and first performed in 1604. It was first published as in Cuarto edition in 1622 and a year later in a Folio. The period of its creation is called Jacobean from the name of the first king from the Stuart dynasty. It was a period in which theatres were restored andShakespeare has already been regarded as a playwright of the court. Othello’s plot is not original, Shakespeare resorted to work by Italian writer Giraldi Cinthio. What Shakespeare does is to add complexity to the characters, particularly in case of Iago, who psychologically is very complex; the author locates the story in different places and reduces the time of the original story in order toincrease the tension. He also used a history book to create the story: History of the Turks by Richard Koolles. It was used to create the scenario of the conflict between Venice and Turkey that took place in 16th century. Othello is one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies. It was called a domestic tragedy, because it treats with a private sphere. However, it starts with a marriage, an element ofcomedy. The plot works in reverse: at the beginning there is stability, love, but it moves to chaos. Shakespeare sets his play in Venice, because it was considered to be a flourishing cultural and financial centre as well as an exotic setting for a play. The story concerns public and private life of a Venetian general, Othello called also ‘the Moor’, who is a foreigner in service of the Duke. Hesecretly marries Desdemona, a daughter of a Senator, who disagrees with this match. The main reason argued by Desdemona’s father is Othello’s otherness. The reader is provided with information regarding Othello’s status- he is a respected figure. Even so, he is seen as an outsider if the private side is regarded. The play displays a contemporary society, that was racist and prejudiced towards theidea of ‘otherness’, which meant that they used to ascribe different, frequently negative characteristics to peoples that they did little or no knowledge of . Arabs and black people were considered less civilized than Europeans. This idea is present throughout the tragedy and it will be precisely this, which influences the tragic final.
The extract is located in the third act, third scene.It is a very climatic scene as the fragment shows gradual transformation of Othello, which marks a turning point of the play and is a prolepsis of the final. The scene is long and presents how Othello has ‘changed with [Iago’s] poison’. The Moor started to doubt in his wife’s honesty of feelings and this makes him act in a very passionate way. There are resources applied dramatically in order tocreate the feeling of confusion in Othello’s mind. He thinks that his public face, his reputation was lost which makes him very angry and confused as he does not know what to believe. He threatens Iago to’give [him] the ocular proof’ or he would suffer consequences of spreading a slander about Desdemona unfaithfulness. Othello is pushed to behave as the ’other’, even though he was trying torestrain his passions and behave as one of the community he lived in. The Moor is changed because of malicious intrigues of his lieutenant, Iago. Motives of Iago’s manipulations might be interpreted in an ambiguous way. He was disappointed because of not having been promoted, which is one of the reasons that motivate his actions. Some critics argue that it is his full of envy nature that makes himdestroy life of a person who he thinks to be responsible for his unfulfilled ambitions. So, Iago decides to take revenge on Othello, who did not appreciated his battlefield skills.
Othello asks for visual proof, evidence of his wife’s fidelity, but the more evidence he’s given, the more blind he becomes. He is not using his reason, he’s ridden by his passion. There is also an opposition...