Dom Casmurro And Machado In Shakespeare's Othello

Dom Casmurro is narrated in the first person narrative by the self-proclaimed protagonist Bento, nicknamed Dom Casmurro for his stubborn nature. The story is told solely from his perspective and therefore automatically creates a biased view of the events that come to pass in the novel. The flawed narrator (Bento) writes the story from his point of view completely muting out the opinions and speech that do not directly support his case in order to rally sympathy and build trust between himself and the reader. Despite the fact that all we have to believe is Bento’s thoughts and what he writes down, because of Machado’s writing technique we are able to see what Bento tries to do, which is to play the victim in the story. Driven by jealousy and

After seeing the play at the theatre Bento seems to think it works parallel to his life at home and this is where he gets the idea of murder in order to solve his problem; “Not I but Capitu had to die.” This makes it evident that he understands solely what he wants to see. As a consequence he misunderstands the ending of Othello in order to fit the scenario he thinks he is facing. He imagines himself as Othello, a victim of an adulterous wife, who claims to be guilty. Even though Desdemona is guilt free, he still pursues the idea that he is being cuckolded; “really guilty, as guilty as Capitu.” he repeats guilty in order to not only emphasise the idea but also to himself. Bento envisions his life fitting exactly into the play, Jose Dias is Iago, Capitu is Desdemona and he is Othello. Modifying his life to fit the play shows to what extent his imagination runs his life, he is so engulfed in mirroring his life that he even went as far as to add the detail that Desdemona, Capitu is not innocent and therefore needs to die. Machado tries to make the connection between the handkerchief and Capitu’s eyes as they both serve as the device to reveal the theme of infidelity; “a handkerchief was enough to kindle the jealousy of Othello.” Capitu’s “undertow” eyes where the reason as to why Bento became increasingly jealous. The significance of this is to show how important this external influence is, this was a way for Bento to externalise his imagine theories about Escobar, Ezekiel and Capitu. Bento eventually becoming his own Iago does not register in his mind because of the fact that he has already given the role of the villain to Capitu and there is only one villain presented in Othello.Bento shows his victimisation mostly through referring to othello because it is what is meant to stand out to the