The way a tragedy is defined is by the character, in a drama or literary work, that is broken down to the bone so that the character feels great impending sorrow that often leads to a calamitous end, this fatality is often the consequence of a moral weakness that the character suffers. Examples of the moral flaw that is seen throughout tragedies can be found in Shakespeare’s Othello and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. In Othello the ‘hamartia’ is more than hinted at, with many scenes depicting to the audience Othello’s jealousy and his ability to be easily manipulated. In Vertigo, on the other hand, the main character ‘Scottie’ has more than a few flaws that leads him to his demise, it is seen though that his main flaw is his weakness for romantic
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The tragic flaw of his credulity is seen in many scenes “Iago is most honest” (II.iii.7) and “My lord, you know I love you.” (III.iii.118) are examples of the machiavellian trap Othello finds himself falling into. Othello is seen as a kind hearted soldier with a noble persona but being naive in nature he is lead to believe that those around him are as honest as himself. The manipulation that is played out by Iago shows his cunning and his capability to fool those around him to get the results he wants. Another significant part of Othello’s trust for Iago is the fact that he has little understanding of the Venetian society and thus makes him an outsider, the reliability on Iago is shown to Othello through his history of great courage in battle which also gives Othello little reason to be suspicious of Iago. Iago describes his military actions to Rodrigo in “of whom his eyes had seen the proof at Rhodes, at Cyprus” (I.i.29&30). Behind Othello’s back though the audience easily sees the hatred Iago secretly holds for Othello; he uses racial and derogatory terms as a way of describing his hatred to the audience. It can seen throughout the play, some examples being “an old black ram is topping your white ewe” (I.i.89&90) and “what a full fortune does the thick lips owe?” (I.i.67). The fact that Othello is black is often brought up and never in a commendable way, Roderigo especially is repeatedly seen calling Othello not by his name but as “Moor” this gives the effect of dehumanisation and gives Othello less of an
The tragic flaw of his credulity is seen in many scenes “Iago is most honest” (II.iii.7) and “My lord, you know I love you.” (III.iii.118) are examples of the machiavellian trap Othello finds himself falling into. Othello is seen as a kind hearted soldier with a noble persona but being naive in nature he is lead to believe that those around him are as honest as himself. The manipulation that is played out by Iago shows his cunning and his capability to fool those around him to get the results he wants. Another significant part of Othello’s trust for Iago is the fact that he has little understanding of the Venetian society and thus makes him an outsider, the reliability on Iago is shown to Othello through his history of great courage in battle which also gives Othello little reason to be suspicious of Iago. Iago describes his military actions to Rodrigo in “of whom his eyes had seen the proof at Rhodes, at Cyprus” (I.i.29&30). Behind Othello’s back though the audience easily sees the hatred Iago secretly holds for Othello; he uses racial and derogatory terms as a way of describing his hatred to the audience. It can seen throughout the play, some examples being “an old black ram is topping your white ewe” (I.i.89&90) and “what a full fortune does the thick lips owe?” (I.i.67). The fact that Othello is black is often brought up and never in a commendable way, Roderigo especially is repeatedly seen calling Othello not by his name but as “Moor” this gives the effect of dehumanisation and gives Othello less of an