Othello
The play is situated in Venice. Venetian laws appear Venetian authorities appear, Venetian characters appear, and Venice is a country that was visited by people from other countries. Othello doesn't belong to Venice. He has come from elsewhere. He has come from North Africa. He was a Moor and Moor is not an English man nor a Christian and that poses a problem for him. He is a big fighter.
One can imagine the kind of vocabulary and knowledge Shakespeare had. His knowledge of culture, and range of interests, and there is also a binding thread and every play is different from others. It means Shakespeare would have prepared himself by studying the culture, history, and laws of that particular country, even the England of today would be a bit odd, untouched by what Shakespeare is going to tell them. Therefore, one should become familiar with the atmosphere of the text first, and then gradually become a part of that play.
What is love? Whether it is one-sided. Whether virtuality and love can ensure stability in life. All these points would be taken up together by Shakespeare and then Shakespeare doesn't discuss it as a theme but present it as an experience in which different characters are apart. Then they would realize gradually if not at the beginning that their love is not acceptable to the social setup in which they live. They have to contend with it, they have to struggle against this kind of social struggle to make themselves acceptable. This person shows that kind of valor, that kind of bravery that he was made governor of Cypress and defeated by Venice. So love is an integral part of society and there are conflicts and those conflicts will visit those characters.
Shakespeare is not talking only about this. He is talking about a complex situation in which this particular question is placed and then the play opens a large number of political, economic, and social possibilities if these possibilities are strong, stronger than the character who can bear them, then of course the end can be predicted. The end could be negative.
The play's end is a kind of tragedy, with both lovers dying at the end. The poison of racism and the poison of individual traits are so strong in the case of Othello, not the woman. The woman is so pure till the end. The poison of this kind of separatism and racism and the other things that work in the mind of the character Othello. That poison is so strong towards the end that Othello with his own hands will kill his wife and his beloved under an impression that is accepted as false at the end but at that time he realizes that the game has been over.
It is a tragedy. It is a tale of love. It is a description of conflicts of interest. The complexity of social clauses is how the play has been conceived, and the play is on a grand scale. All of us know that it is not about neighborhood love affairs. It is not about street love affairs. It is not about the city alone. It is not confined to that kind of individual. Then there is an interesting question. Who is actually the carrier of prejudice of racism, against this couple that is in love? They are very fine people, they are very sweet. Othello is very dignified. You can think of two or three dignified characters in the whole of Shakespeare, and then Othello is going to be one of them. He is a very fine person. He is helpful. he is cool and calm. He is a great fighter. Such a person to whom the entire city looks up to, the entire country looks up to. If this kind of person meets this kind of end, then things are really serious and Shakespeare wants to make us aware of these serious things.
Iago and Othello have not pulled along with each other. Othello may even not know that Iago exists. Who is Iago? Iago is called an ancient. He is called insane also. Cassio is higher in rank than Iago. Cassio is a lieutenant. Why does Iago behave like this? What are the motives behind this? Some critics have used an exciting phrase. They say that this person has in him what can be called "motiveless malignity". It is malignity, it is an evil, a disease that is motiveless. He is a born villain. When he is caught at the end in the last few pages, somebody asks him why did you do it. He says well from now onwards I will never speak a word and he goes quiet. So he was the kind of person who will always work against good, who will always work against morality. He will use somebody's goodness against that person in such a manner that the person just doesn't know how to tackle him. In fact, it is a level of playwriting, one is fascinated by the way Iago is to handle the whole of the play in a negative fashion. So he is in fact pulling the strings. he is using different characters as they are playing with things or toys in his hands. Some critics even say that the actual writer of the play is not Shakespeare but Iago. He is writing the script of Othello. Therefore, he should be called the actor and one scholar has gone to the extent of saying that Iago is not just the writer of the play but he is also the director of the play. He tells people how to behave and that's why reading Othello one enjoys villainy, This villainy is so very interesting, so very sharp, it is so very clinical, so very surgical. These are the words of professional doctors making a decision on a living body and that decision is done in such precise terms and with such a cool head as if the person is going to be cured that is called the clinical aspect of violence. So Iago has a clinical outlook. He is never angry. He plans things in such a manner that you can call him a finished scoundrel, a finished rascal and he just has to get things done. So he is that kind of planner or organizer.
One of the understandable acquisitions against Iago would be that he has some kind of jealousy. He is driven by jealousy and that jealousy is at many levels. He doesn't like Othello as he is an outsider or he is too big for him or because he is a great fighter and finally when one of the most beautiful young ladies accepts him as a lover, as a husband, then, of course, this person's jealousy gets extended to that kind of extreme. So maybe jealousy is one factor. He also talks to himself and to the audience about Cassio's promotion. So he may have wanted some kind of promotion. And because he is not promoted, therefore, he wants to replace Cassio. Jealousy is there in all of us but when jealousy takes this kind of extreme form, then it becomes pathological, some kind of mental disease, and maybe Iago has that kind of mental disease. We use the word "maybe" because Shakespeare doesn't provide any clear answer in a very complex situation.
There are so many factors involved in such issues. These factors can not be separated and if you separate a factor then you start focusing on one bed rather than the other which means that the smaller factor actually pushes into the background and the more significant factors become the sole factor. So that's the problem with analyzing the play.
Shakespeare in one sense doesn't belong to England only but Shakespeare belongs to all of us. he is a humanist writer. he is a writer who will objectively present the situation. he has a moral angle but that moral angle is a humanist moral angle. it is not a religious angle, not an ethical angle. He doesn't believe in that kind of prejudice of any kind. He doesn't also believe in the exact definition of right and wrong but he has some kind of preference for human goodness, good feelings, friendliness, closeness, and working together being a fellow. These values he cherishes and these values cross boundaries. All human beings belong to one particular species, and this species is spread all around the earth. So in fact, we are not supposed to have any country, the earth belongs to all human beings.
Literature demolishes boundaries. Literature offers a kind of thread to people to bind them in one kind of unity, and Shakespeare contributes to this kind of human integrity and human unity. It is for this reason that Shakespeare is popular all over the world. Shakespeare is a torchbearer of a message that will bind the entire humanity in one single thread. Racism doesn't have a place in human society. Iago is not only a character but also a point of view and that point of view belongs to a large number of people in a dormant form.
The personal details
1. Othello
Othello is a soldier of the best variety. The person who is fearless, the person who is calm, the person who uses his weapons well, plans his strategies well, and spends all his time-fighting. it means he is a professional soldier and a professional soldier has weaknesses. Because a professional soldier doesn't know what love is? how to tackle the problem of love. A soldier can never do it. He can never fall in love because a soldier is supposed to fight. It is in the beginning scenes when Desdemona's father Brabantio asks Othello how he spends his ordinary time or life. So he started telling his tales and the girl was listening standing there. The girl standing likes him. The girl was in his early twenties and Othello was in his mid-thirty. Othello is a combination of a soldier, outsider, and dignitary.
2. Desdemona
She is a daughter and then she ceases to be a daughter when she marries Othello secretly and she is also an individual. Many people will raise eyebrows. This "I" word is anathema to social organization. She is a social rebel. She goes against orthodoxy and she brings modernity. So she can rightly be called a daring social rebel. She is visualized as a beautiful, good-looking human being. Beauty doesn't lie in physical attributes.
3. Emilia
She is also an integral part of the sequence of quality and she has been married to Iago. At one point when she learns of Iago's black character and Othello's cruelty to Desdemona, she says very clearly that men are stomachs and women are food. So in a way, men consumed women. What kind of society is this? They always treated her as an item of consumption. She is good only when she is twenty or thirty but when she gets fifty, she is not good at all. Whereas men of all ages feel important.
This play is a tragedy and the play ends when every good person dies. So we have a sense of pain, a sense of loss, but we have no pessimism because these give us the message of a very intense kind of moral system, a very immense kind of human moral system. We should try to live beautifully and live with one another in a bond of relationship and in a bond of love. If a thing goes against it, we would die but we would not stop aspiring for that.