The Military Commander in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

The Military Commander in Othello The character of the general in William Shakespe ars tragic drama Othello is quite august, although plagued by the shortcoming or flunk of gullibility. Let us in this essay look at exclusively the features, both good and bad. of this ill-fated hero. David Bevington in William Shakespeare Four Tragedies describes many very well virtues which reside within the general Othellos blackness, like that of the natives dwelling in heathen lands, could betoken to Elizabethan audiences an innocent pr superstarness to accept Christianity, and Othello is one who has already embraced the Christian faith. His first appearance onstage, when he confronts a society of torch-bearing men coming to arrest him and bids his followers sheathe their swords, is sufficiently redolent(p) of Christs arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to convey a fleeting comparison between Othello and the Christian God whose charity and clemency he seeks to emulate. Othellos blacknes s may be used in part as an emblem of fallen man, but so are we all fallen. His age similarly strengthens our impression of his wisdom, restraint, leadership. (220) Is it his gullibility which leads to his downfall? Morton W. Bloomfield and Robert C. Elliott in Great Plays Sophocles to Brecht posit the lack of insight of the hero as the bring in of his tragic fall Othellos lack of insight, cunningly played upon by Iago, leads to his downfall. And as the full enormity of his deed dawns upon him in the great cyclorama of tragic self-revelation at the end, the audience may perhaps experience catharsis, that purge of the soul brought about by an almost unbearable pity for him and his victims, and by terror at what human... ...han all his tribe . . . . He dies a noble death, just as he has lived a noble life. Michael Cassios valuation of his end is our evaluation This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon / For he was great of heart. WORKS CITED Bevington, David, ed. William Shakespeare Four Tragedies. New York petite Books, 1980. Bloomfield, Morton W. and Robert C. Elliott, ed. Great Plays Sophocles to Brecht. New York Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965. Coles, Blanche. Shakespeares Four Giants. Rindge, New Hampshire Richard Smith Publisher, 1957. Jorgensen, capital of Minnesota A. William Shakespeare The Tragedies. Boston Twayne Publishers, 1985. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.