The Human Nature of Othello Essay

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Othello's human nature comes through in a number of ways in Shakespeare's play of the same name. Othello is presented in a heroic light but at the same time his faults and failings are more than apparent and become increasingly pronounced as the drama unfolds. First, his willfulness is on display when he elopes with Desdemona, the daughter of a senator without the consent of her father, who he knows would not approve. Second, his jealousy is piqued by Iago, who looks to bring down the Moor and ruin his life. Third, his murderous actions indicate the full extent of his fall from grace and show just how far human nature can go wrong once the slippery slide from reason and the righteous path is deviated from. This paper will examine how Othello's human nature is represented in the play and how Shakespeare's treatment of Othello expresses the author's own sense of the frailty of human nature and how easily it can succumb to wicked temptations -- or, more precisely, how human nature consists of both good and bad elements competing for control of the soul.



When the play begins, Othello has already secretly married Desdemona, which is a fact that Iago looks to exploit: it raises contention among the senators -- they approve of Othello's valor and his wartime deeds in defense of the State but they disapprove of the sneaking around with Desdemona. However, both Othello and Desdemona give accounts of their actions and seem to justify them to the senators' satisfaction -- at least all the senators that is except for Desdemona's father, who warns Othello, "She has deceived her father and may thee" (1.3.334).

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Indeed, Iago echoes this warning two Acts later when he tells Othello, "She did deceive her father, marrying you," (3.3.209). While Desdemona's virtues in terms of faithfulness are never suspected by the audience, they are by Othello -- precisely because this warning has been fired into his ear by two different persons and it plays upon his psyche, hammering his human nature down from the place of nobility that it has occupied as a soldier to a place wherein it is wholly unfamiliar with its role -- that of domesticity. In fact, as a domestic partner, Othello is very weak and has no experience, learning or training. This warning is like a stark foreshadowing of the doubts that will come to plague Othello and drive him towards murder later in the play. The point of this early episode in Act 1 is given by Shakespeare to show that Othello is not without his human weaknesses: instead of confronting Desdemona's father man to man and seeking his approval (and accepting the response even if negative), Othello shows that he is willing to call into question his own nobility when another presses him to do so (in this case, it is Desdemona who pushes for the elopement).



As Iago begins to….....

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. Othello. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/othello/full.html

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