Does Othello Offer A Sense Of Redemption?

To what extent does Othello offer a sense of redemption at the end?

There isn’t a sense of redemption from Othello although he attains from the audience sympathy through the actions of other characters in the play. Othello fits the description of a Shakespearean tragedy, Othello recognizes his fault and the ending is a calamity. The critic Bradley argues," the playwright always insists on the operation of the doctrine of free will; the (anti) hero is always able to back out, to redeem himself. But, the author dictates, they must move unheedingly to their doom." These essentially could be considered the core principles of what a tragedy has and these features that Bradley points out appear in other Shakespearean plays, namely Macbeth.
Othello

It shows how strong his passion is to kill Desdemona, which the audience will use to question how strong his feelings for Desdemona actually were. Because of this, it forces critics to re-examine the literal meaning of redemption and whether there is any sense of it and Othello really didn’t show any doubt when killing Desdemona’ this questions the fact of whether Othello actually trusted Desdemona. Looking at the historical context, men were often seen and known to be weak if they couldn’t control their wives. Because of this, Othello may have feared that he would be called a ‘cuckold’ which was a term commonly used in that era and meant that a man had lost his wife to another man’s bed and so Othello may have felt the need to ‘silence’ the matter . On the other hand, some critics may argue that Othello had his ‘hands tied’ as no one knew Iago to be such an evil character and so the belief that Iago was the suspect would have been considered ridiculous. Bradley writes that ‘For his opinion of Iago was the opinion of practically everyone who knew him: and that opinion was that Iago was before all things "honest", his very faults being those of excess in honesty. This being so, even if Othello had not been trustful and simple, it would have been quite unnatural in him to be unmoved by the warnings of so honest a friend ’. This

Gossip and rumours that are spread by Iago and Desdemona’s own personal qualities are twisted and are exploited by Iago leading to her downfall. Her boldness and how she asserts herself is not of how women were supposed to conduct themselves at the time. Elizabethan women were raised to believe that they were inferior to men and that men knew better. The church firmly believed this and quoted the bible in order to maintain adherence to this principle. The Scottish protestant leader John Knox wrote: “Women in their greatest perfection were made to serve and obey men”. Othello’ suicide may act as his attempt to achieve forgiveness to Desdemona’s death and the audience may also forgive him. The audience in Shakespeare’s day might have been more sympathetic as Desdemona would have been not accepted in society and her disobedience to her father would have destroyed her reputation. However, this is further complicated as the audience at the time may have interpreted this in another way, as in Christianity suicide is a major sin. Therefore, Othello wanted to be punished for killing of Desdemona. In act 5 scene 2 whilst she is dying she further shows her submission to