Othello as a Tragic Hero
Over 2,300 years ago, Aristotle wrote his famous manual for contemporary authors. This guide, entitled Poetics, covered what aspects a tragedy should contain. Of these aspects, one of the most important points in Poetics made by Aristotle is what characteristics a tragic hero, the protagonist of the tragedy should have. The tragic hero should be a successful, noble person who displays an error in judgment or weakness in character which leads from happiness to misery, ending with a recognition making them usually gain knowledge by the end of the work. These guidelines for creating a tragic hero as well as his guidelines for writing a tragedy were used by many authors who wrote after Aristotle died. One example of a playwright who used Aristotle's Poetics for creating a tragic hero is William Shakespeare and this can be seen in his famous drama, "Othello". Shakespeare's tragic hero, Othello, is a noble, renowned, and prosperous man who has a few flaws which lead to his downfall of happiness to misery and at the end he is able to reach recognition of what he has done wrong during the play. Therefore, Shakespeare's character Othello, fits Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero perfectly.According to Aristotle, the first charac
Shakespeare also uses this idea of Aristotle's tragic hero with his character Othello. His greatest feeling of content is shown when he reached Cyprus in Act II: "I cannot speak enough of this content. Shakespeare also explicitly shows Othello's loss of happiness and his downfall in the speech: "Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!" In this speech, he also says farewell to everything that made him happy before, including, "Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars/ That makes ambition virtue! O, farewell!" Clearly from these quotes, one can understand that Othello is experiencing a huge downfall. In the speech, "Whip me, you devils,/ from the possession of this heavenly sight!/ Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulfur," pg. / Threw a pearl away / Richer than all his tribe . Shakespeare follows all of Aristotle's directions for creating the perfect tragic hero for his play, "Othello". This can be seen in Act II when he says, "My blood beings my safer guides to rule," speaking about the fight between Roderigo, Montano, and Cassio. This, again, is all a result of his harmartia of being gullible and listening to all that Iago has told him. It is not until the very end when Emilia explains the story of the handkerchief being lost that Othello loses his ignorance and understands that Iago is a dishonest villain. He recognizes that he "loved not wisely but too well," and that he "being wrought [was] perplexed in the extreme .
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