西方文学名著赏析

Othello’s Analysis: Cheat and Jealousy

Othello, perhaps is Shakespeare most impressive tragedy. In Othello, he successfully created many vivid characters and told us the most intricate and regrettable story. After finishing this book, it remains me a lot to think about.

Next I will summarize the story part by part, and provide my analysis after each part.

Part I

Summary

Our title character Othello, a Moor from northern Africa, is very courageous and skillful in battle, and finishes the transformation from a black-skin slave to a great and noble general. His struggling experience and noble character inspire Desdemona deeply, who is a white senator's beautiful daughter. Despite of the racial difference and age gap between Othello and Desdemona, they fall in love with each other very soon and get married in stealthily. But Desdemona's father, the senator Brabantio, disapproves the marriage and thinks his daughter was taken advantage of, but his daughter soon tells him that she is in love with Othello. At this point, there is nothing that Brabantio can do about the arrangement but accept Othello as his daughter's husband.

Analysis

From this past, we can see that Othello is such a man: brave, brilliant in military, noble and respected. It's all these good characters that attract Desdemona, leading to the marriage between them. However, even though Othello is such an outstanding person, there is a problem that can't be ignored. That is, racial difference. It's mainly because Othello is a Moor, a black man, so even though he's an outstanding general,

Desdemona's father still disapproves of their marriage. And also out of this racial difference, I think Othello may more or less feel inferior. He desires to be totally acknowledged by the venetians. And perhaps this is the reason why Iago's tricks could be successfully realized, because Othello is so sensitive to his wife's faithfulness.

When analyze Desdemona, she's such an innocent girl, just like an angle. Her love is sincere and fiery. Regardless of her father's disapproval and worldly shackles, she gets married with Othello secretly. Such a good thing should be cautiously protected instead of being destroyed. And this is precisely what makes this tragedy so tragic.

Part II

Summary

There is a wealthy venetian named Roderigo who has adored Desdemona for a long time, so he's jealous to Othello and Desdemona's marriage. At the meantime, the main villain in this story come on stage. His name is Iago, the standard bearer of general Othello as well as husband of Emilia. Iago feels that Othello promoted another man(Cassio) to a higher position that should have been his, and dwells on a rumor that Othello slept with his wife. For such reasons, Iago hates Othello's guts, and hunts for a way to ruin Othello. So he makes a series of tricks. First Iago makes Cassio drunk, and after that he instigates Roderigo to have a street fight with Cassio and at the same time he makes a chaos in the city Cyprus stealthily. When Othello comes to spot and hears Iago's exaggerated description, he is very angry and dismisses Cassio from his position on the spot.

Analysis

What we can infer from this part is that Iago is a narrow-minded, suspicious and vengeful man. Iago has heard rumors that Othello slept with his wife, Emilia. He has no proof, and he never tells us where exactly he heard these rumors. In fact, he seems more interested in picturing his wife cheating than actually trying to discover if the rumors are true or not. With this already in his mind, he takes the advancement of Cassio as the last straw. Cassio is a younger, less experienced man, who has just been