We left class with the conversation of a moral in Othello. I thought about it for some time and definitely decided that because Othello is a tragedy there has to be a moral. I think a sense of right and wrong and morality are major in tragedy as opposed to comedy. This is due to the fact that in comedy things end up right at the end while in tragedy they do not. And when you see tragedy and the major mistakes others commit (like killing your innocent wife) you should learn from that person and not repeat what they did. I would not say there are specific morals we are to take from Othello like all women are deceivers, instead I believe that there are general morals we are to take from Othello that apply not to one specific type of person but to all people in general. I think the major lessons we learn are seen in the play through marriage and its main characters Othello, Emilia, Desdemona, Iago, Cassio and even Rodrigo.
I think the lesson to be learned is the marriage between the characters Othello and Desdemona and even Iago and Emilia. It is important, in marriage and in all relationships in general, that trust is established. And in both situations there is no trust. Othello doesn’t trust Desdemona with Cassio.
Iago doesn’t trust Emilia with any man. He thinks she cheats. And we are left to wonder from Emilia’s speech in 4.2 if perhaps she was cheating on him. But according to her, if she does something like that it is because she is responding to her husband’s own scorn. We can perhaps believe this is her knowing Iago never trusts her and it doesn’t matter whether she’s lying or if she’s telling the truth, so if he’s gonna accuse her of sleeping around and not believe her why not just make it true? At least it wouldn’t be a lie.
Iago and Emilia’s relationship, as does Othello and Desdemona’s brings up an interesting point about revenge as well. If Emilia is acting on revenge against her husband then she only is perpetuating the cycle of him being cruel and then her seeking revenge. As for Othello and Desdemona, Othello seeks revenge on Desdemona and Cassio for going behind his back by seeking to kill them both, we all know how that ends of course. In the end revenge only causes more problems so instead of seeking revenge seek forgiveness.
Othello and Emilia both display another lesson to the reader: Look before you leap or don’t be so quick to act before you know what you’re getting into. Emilia didn’t realize that by telling Iago in Act III and giving him the handkerchief she inevitably created the downfall of all the characters in the play. However her action can more so be excused as an innocent act than what Othello did. Othello killed his wife when he had no proof that she was cheating on him! Everyone said she wasn’t. and what did he do? He listened to only Iago. We all know that one source is not good enough to support anything. Could you imagine if Othello took this to court? like to Judge Pirro or something? She would have massacred him for coming to her with such a story without proof. Not to mention all Othello had to do to find out whether she was cheating on him was to follow her and Cassio. See if they do anything, he would have found them innocent.
The lesson Desdemona teaches us is that even if you’re the nicest, best person in the world, if you put yourself in a position that you’re not supposed to be in then you can still get hurt. The phrase wrong place, wrong time comes to mind. Or it rains on the Good and Bad alike. If Desdemona did not insist on going to Cyprus then she wouldn’t have been killed.
Desdemona’s second lesson to teach us is also the lesson Cassio teaches us: Go straight to the source. Cassio got into trouble with Othello and instead of going straight to Othello and apologizing and making things right, he went to someone else to do it for him: Desdemona (and it isn’t even him who begs her right? It’s Emilia doing her husband’s bidding?). Now it is not wrong for Desdemona to want to help a friend. But the way she did it was what caused the problem. Instead of her going straight to Othello and telling him everything and saying “Cassio is very sorry and you should give him another chance,” she went behind his back as well and made it seem like it was something else (4.3., 2.3).
Iago teaches us a very simple moral: if you do wrong eventually you’ll get caught. It is amazing that he wasn’t caught from the beginning of the play I mean he created such a divide in these characters and they didn’t even talk to each other after Iago was with them.
Rodrigo lastly teaches us that, unlike what Gordon Gecko tells us, Greed is NOT good, and if you think more of money than of life then you’re going to have and get some REALLY BAD KARMA. We mentioned in class that Iago was not of a very rich class, and here’s Rodrigo the fool who can’t realize that Iago doesn’t have money to pay this guy to do these things and he had to keep Rodrigo silent somehow, so inevitably in 5.1 Rodrigo’s death was the only way to keep him quiet.
2 comments:
Based on your post, it seems that you really felt the tragedy of Othello deeply. I think it's natural to try to take the pain and anguish of this story and find some kind of moral within it. It's seems to be human nature to need some kind of closure and resolution with regards to dark times or circumstances. The fact that this was your reaction to Othello is a great testimony to how well Shakespeare accomplished the craft of creating a tragic work.
This is an interesting post, and I feel torn myself in thinking about the "moral" of the story. I agree that tragedy is understood to have a point, but it's so challenging to find a clear set of principles to pull out of this one. These are good possibilities, but could it also be true that we have an ironic final statement--that sometimes there isn't any meaning to be had?
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