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Good And Bad Decisions In Shakespeare's Othello

648 Words3 Pages

Decisions, Decisions
The choices that people make can be seen in an evil or good nature way, just like everyday people. Even Shakespeare knew this and wanted to add this theme to his plays. In Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, Othello was our hero. Every hero has flaws that lead to their undoing. Othello’s poor decision making was caused by his flaws. His tragic flaws include: making poor judgments, irrational decisions, and his insecurity. These reasons are his downfall. Shakespeare starts off with Othello making poor decisions from the start of the play. Othello made a bad choice by running off at night to marry a woman he didn’t truly know. Thoughtout the whole play Othello was making bad judgements. The worst one he made was trusting Iago with such little to go on. Othello watched in act 4 scene 1 where Iago was talking to Cassio as a great friend, trying to get Cassio to “talk” about the affair with Desdemona. If Iago can break a best friend bond why wouldn’t he lie to …show more content…

The down side to this is that he is impulsive in major life decisions, an example would be getting married to a woman that fell in love with him because she felt pity for him. Othello stated that Desdemona only fell in love with him for his lonely and depressing life. Othello said, “She loved me for the dangers I had past, / And I loved her that she did pity them.” Whiling explains how Desdemona fell in love with him (1.3.166-7). Another irrational decision he acted hastily upon was to kill his wife so soon after he thought she was having an affair. Othello didn’t really think about his decisions before he made them. He just acts upon his emotions, which is effective during a battle. When someone is driven by emotions that person has made themselves a time bomb, soon that time bomb will go off. Othello timer went off in the wrong place with the wrong

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Development of Othello The character of Othello transforms during the course of the play from a respected and revered general to a fallen and easily fooled man, due to the unfortunate sequence of events that transpire through both coincidence and Iago’s evil designs. He said that he wouldn’t be the jealous type unless he had seen it happen right in front of him, but with the help of Iago and a lot of coincidences it had happened in front of him. His judgment of the coincidence over ruled facts that could have changed the way it had ended drastically (Nwabueze, 167).

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The tragedy of Othello written by William Shakespeare presents the main character Othello as a respectable, honorable, and dignified man. However, because of his insecurities and good nature he is easily taken advantage of and manipulated by his alleged friends. Shakespeare is known for his exceptional ability to compose plays full of deceit, revenge, and jealousy. Jealousy is an underlying theme throughout the tragedy and has been represented by many of the main characters, such as Iago, Roderigo, and Othello. The topic of jealousy will ultimately lead to the demise of many characters throughout the tragedy.

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He is manipulative and tells Othello to “observe her [Desdemona] well with Cassio” (Shakespeare, 3.3:197). Iago feeds Othello with countless lies and makes him miserable with something that is not factual. He is determined to get revenge and he does not realize Iago stands insincere. Furthermore, Iago is selfish when he tells Othello, “I am yours for ever” (3.3:479). He betrays Othello yet still let’s him depend on him for his own

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Shakespeare’s ability to illustrate the battle between good and evil is arguably one of his best skills as a writer. Incorporating the art of the morality play, he shows the battle of these two forces for a man’s soul. But the beauty of his writing comes to light in how he shows this process. In both Macbeth and Othello, Shakespeare portrays evil as corrupting, while the source of evil differs.

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Early in the play Othello by William Shakespeare Othello clearly shows sound judgment and logical reasoning behind his conclusions. When Brabantio attempted to take Othello in for stealing Desdemona from him Othello did not react with anger, but instead with logic and told Iago and Cassio to “Keep up [their] bright swords, for the dew will rust them” (Shakespeare I.ii.76-77). Othello did not act quick nor rashly in this scenario. Later, in Cyprus, Othello once again displayed his sound judgment in the way he addressed a drunken Cassio by asking “How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot” (Shakespeare II.iii.200). Othello gave Cassio a chance to defend himself and appeared to follow the Venetian method of questioning him rather than simply assuming Cassio to be guilty.

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