Comparing Suffering In A Long Way Gone And Othello

Suffering is an obstacle that everyone has to confront at all times in their life. Most of the time, suffering is painful. However, if people consider it as a chance for learning, they can gain a broader appreciation of life and success. They will grow one step further in the process of overcoming and stepping out from the disincentive. However, confronting suffering is not necessarily drawing the beneficial consequences: sometimes, suffering seems ultimately pointless. It may ruin people devastatingly and even lead them to the dehumanization by drawing out their negative hidden traits. A Long Way Gone--a book of Ishmael’s dreadful memories of being a boy soldier and the atrocious truth of the war--and Othello--a tragedy of jealousy, vengeance,

Othello suffers by the poisonous words by Iago--a villain who has a desire to ruin Othello--that his wife, Desdemona, has affairs with Cassio. Iago, by using Othello’s inferiority complex in his physical appearance and race as a means to destroy Othello, succeeds in paralyzing his rationality and extracting Othello's nature with his tricky language. Hence, Othello, who sings the joy of love, begins to worry that she will abandon him, and in such a horrible imaginative came to detest her, to curse her, and to lament his situation. Othello, whose mind is obsessed with the rumor about Desdemona and Cassio, even claims his marriage as a “curse of marriage” (Act 3. Scene 3. Line 273). Although he claims his marriage as a full of love and pleasure, as Iago just barely touches Othello’s weakness, he begins to collapse on its own, and changes his attitude towards Desdemona immediately and regrets his relationship with her. Hence, Othello--who is exasperated from the torture--murders Desdemona ultimately. After the murder, as Othello becomes to recognize all the truth that Desdemona at no time has a such an affair with anyone and the full extent of Iago’s involvement, he is racked by intolerable guilt and sense of betrayal, he kills Iago and suicides. Before the suicides, he talks to himself, “O fool!

Comparing A Long Way Gone and Othello, the suffering makes Ishmael grow one step further whereas it ruins Othello and leads him to confront the tragedy. The reason for the differences in results is that they react differently to the situation that they suffer from. Ishmael overcomes his traumas from the war with his efforts and encouragements from others, and learns lessons from it and uses those lessons in order to prevent child and people experiencing the same situation that he goes through; his shows the desire to surmount his situation. However, Othello’s reaction towards the suffering is totally different Ishmael’s: he doesn’t show to any desire to step out from the situatIOn. Othello just believes what Iago says without any doubt, but at no time asks Desdemona about the rumor. If he observed Iago, Desdemona, and Cassio, he would notice that Iago was lying. Hence, as the result of his passive reaction to the suffering, he ultimately kills Desdemona and suicide. The standard of suffering cannot be estimated: although people have the same situation of suffering, one may torture more severely while other may not feel suffer or even many not care. These concepts of suffering are illustrated in A Long Way Gone and Othello, along with the