The English literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages is one of the great phenomena of European culture. The period was one of the immense and concentrated literary activity. It was the age of comparative religious and tolerance, which was due largely to the queen’s influence. The age of Elizabethan was a time of intellectual liberty, of growing intelligence and comfort among all classes. For a parallel we must go back to the age of Pericles in Athens, or of Augustus in Rome, or go forward a little to the magnificent court of Louis XIV, when Corneille, Racine and Moliere brought the drama in France to the point where Marlowe, Shakespeare , and Johnson had left it in England half a century earlier.[1]
In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona. [2] Othello is the most painfully extreme and the most terrible. I personally believe that issue of sexual jealousy is one of the strongest themes in Othello. There is no subject more exciting than sexual jealousy. Jealousy, and especially sexual jealous, brings it a sense of shame and humiliation. Such jealousy as Othello’s converts human nature into chaos, liberates the beast in man. The key event of Othello, on which the entire action turning points , is the murder of Desdemona, and this takes place at the end of the play.
Othello ( the Moor) falls in love and he marries Desdemona. During the war against the Turks,Othello is fooled by devious Iago about his wife is having an affair and being unfaithful as Desdemona having relationship with the lieutenant named Cassio. Inflamed and swollen with jealousy, Othello suffocates his wife, Desdemona in her bed. Only then he realizes on his own sin that he has killed his faithful wife. The Moor kills himself after that. It is interesting that Iago uses jealousy against Othello, yet jealousy is likely the source of Iago's hatred in the first place. In Othello, jealousy takes many forms, from sexual suspicion to professional competition, but it is, in all cases, destructive.[3]
When it comes to jealousy, it is inevitable to touch on human emotion. Based on John MacMurray’s Reason and Emotion ; the emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not,as we often think, subordinate, or subsidiary to the mind. It is the core and essence of human life.[4] Then when we associate jealousy with emotion, we must know that there is always reason that lies behind jealousy and emotion. Reason is just thinking, and emotion is about feeling. The feel of jealousy ignites by emotion which is governs by reason. Reason reveals itself in emotion by its objectivity and it determines our behavior. Reason is the capacity to behave consciously , to behave objectively. John also emphasis on Love, which is fundamental positive emotion characteristic of human being can be subjective and irrational or objective and rational.[5]
OTHELLO : Why, why is this?
Think'st thou I'ld make a life of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such ex sufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,—
Away at once with love or jealousy! [6]
( Act 3, scene 3)
Here, The Moor declares that he won't be destroyed by enviness, jealousy ( I believe it as one of man’s egos ). He explains that “Desdemona For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago,” ( act 3, scene 3, Lines 220 )[7]. Even Desdemona accepts that the fact that Othello is black. But, then, Othello thinks that he may in fact be a bit more jealous and suspicious of his wife than he lets on. Then he claims he wants some evidences of Desdemona's unfaithfulness . Looks like Iago's wicked plots of his master plan started to work out.
OTHELLO :Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex'd in the extreme.
( Act 5, scene 2)[8]
Othello pleads as he believe that he is innocent that he accused and murdered Desdemona due to her infidelity and unfaithfulness. The Moor assumes that he is not sinful as everything fall under Iago’s immoral plans. I in person deem that he does not want people misunderstood that he is a guy that easily jealous and narrow-minded.
Last but not least, Shakespeare’s Othello heralds us about reality of life when emotion can’t be control by human. Jealousy is not healthy if the reason is irrational. Emotion must be accompanied with rational and reasonable reason in life. Or else, human will unable to control emotion and leads to worse situations.
[1] William J. Long, English Literature ( Enlarged edition ) / India / A.I.T.B.S Publishers India /2007.
[2] Barbara A. Mowat & Paul Westine , Othello by William Shakespeare FOLGER Shakespeare LIBRARY/ New York / Simon & Schuster Paperbacks/ 2009
[3] http://www.shmoop.com/othello/jealousy-theme.html retrieved at 10 February 2011 at 5.34 pm.
[4] John MacMurray, Reason And Emotion/ London / Faber & Faber Limited/ 1972/ pg
[5] John MacMurray, Reason And Emotion/ London / Faber & Faber Limited/ 1972/ Pg 31
[6] Barbara A. Mowat & Paul Westine , Othello by William Shakespeare FOLGER Shakespeare LIBRARY/ New York / Simon & Schuster Paperbacks/ 2009/ Pg 129-130
[7] Barbara A. Mowat & Paul Westine , Othello by William Shakespeare FOLGER Shakespeare LIBRARY/ New York / Simon & Schuster Paperbacks/ 2009/ Pg 130
[8] Barbara A. Mowat & Paul Westine , Othello by William Shakespeare FOLGER Shakespeare LIBRARY/ New York / Simon & Schuster Paperbacks/ 2009/ Pg 263
0 comments:
Post a Comment