Love is a tricky game that no one can truly understand. Everybody plays it differently, and by different rules. Love is just as powerful as a drug, just as addictive, just as mind altering, and just as hard to quit. The idea of love is toyed with in Shakespeare’s play Othello, where the main character and his newly wed wife are thrown through some challenging tasks. There are a few opposing forces that are not necessarily supportive of Desdemona and Othello being together, like her father, and Othello’s supposed friend. The reader is pre-disposed to sympathize with Othello right from the moment the play begins, because it is evident that there are people that dislike him. Othello does truly love his wife Desdemona, he is purely blinded by
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Othello is a very skilled army general who appears to be highly appreciated; however, Othello is a man of colour which causes some problems for him. His lovers father is convinced he is an unholy man who used black magic to trap his daughter into marrying him. He spent the beginning of his life feeling like nothing but a weapon, used for his battle skills, until he met Desdemona. She replaced his “pains [with] a world of kisses” (1.3. 159), and made Othello feel whole. Othello is depicted as a rather emotional person; he is deeply in love with Desdemona and not afraid to show it. He exclaims that, “if after every tempest come such calms, / May the winds blow till they have wakened death” (2.1.183-184), if Desdemona is awaiting him he could face the worst of storms. She is the calm that tames the storm that crashes inside of Othello’s mind, allowing him to once again feel peace. He becomes blind to practically everything else around him, and any task he is put to is now done with his love for Desdemona in …show more content…
It is often depicted that strong leaders are instead weakened by these feelings. Othello is a highly regarded general who has fought bravely for most of his life, but when Desdemona steals his attention his leadership skills begin to plummet. He begins to think of only her instead of the men he is leading. Once he is convinced that Desdemona is indeed sleeping with Cassio, he decides he must kill her. Othello seems to completely lose himself and struggle between his past love for her and his present anger. “Yet I’ll not shed her blood… Yet she must die” (5.2.3/6), he fears if she lives she will only cause more pain. Desdemona’s character is extremely naïve and innocent, once her husband confronts her she is clueless to the cause of his anger, “[w]hy I should fear, I know not, / Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel fear” (5.2.37-38). She continues to tell Othello only the truth, that she has remained faithful, right until he smothers her. It is Iago’s wife Emilia who finally breaks through Othello’s rage, she explains Iago’s plan to ruin his marriage. Othello then spirals down even further in his insanity to realize how wrong he was to kill “the sweetest innocent” (5.2.205), because of a rumour. Othello then lays down next to his dead wife and ends his own life, for he cannot live with what he has
Othello is a very skilled army general who appears to be highly appreciated; however, Othello is a man of colour which causes some problems for him. His lovers father is convinced he is an unholy man who used black magic to trap his daughter into marrying him. He spent the beginning of his life feeling like nothing but a weapon, used for his battle skills, until he met Desdemona. She replaced his “pains [with] a world of kisses” (1.3. 159), and made Othello feel whole. Othello is depicted as a rather emotional person; he is deeply in love with Desdemona and not afraid to show it. He exclaims that, “if after every tempest come such calms, / May the winds blow till they have wakened death” (2.1.183-184), if Desdemona is awaiting him he could face the worst of storms. She is the calm that tames the storm that crashes inside of Othello’s mind, allowing him to once again feel peace. He becomes blind to practically everything else around him, and any task he is put to is now done with his love for Desdemona in …show more content…
It is often depicted that strong leaders are instead weakened by these feelings. Othello is a highly regarded general who has fought bravely for most of his life, but when Desdemona steals his attention his leadership skills begin to plummet. He begins to think of only her instead of the men he is leading. Once he is convinced that Desdemona is indeed sleeping with Cassio, he decides he must kill her. Othello seems to completely lose himself and struggle between his past love for her and his present anger. “Yet I’ll not shed her blood… Yet she must die” (5.2.3/6), he fears if she lives she will only cause more pain. Desdemona’s character is extremely naïve and innocent, once her husband confronts her she is clueless to the cause of his anger, “[w]hy I should fear, I know not, / Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel fear” (5.2.37-38). She continues to tell Othello only the truth, that she has remained faithful, right until he smothers her. It is Iago’s wife Emilia who finally breaks through Othello’s rage, she explains Iago’s plan to ruin his marriage. Othello then spirals down even further in his insanity to realize how wrong he was to kill “the sweetest innocent” (5.2.205), because of a rumour. Othello then lays down next to his dead wife and ends his own life, for he cannot live with what he has