Free College Essays - The Noble Othello in Shakespeares Othello :: GCSE Coursework Shakespeare Othello

The Noble Othello This character is so noble, Othellos smackings and actions amount so inevitably from it and from the forces brought to bear on it, and his sufferings are so heart-rending, that he stirs a passion of mingled love and pity which readers feel for no otherwise hero in Shakespeare, and to which not heretofore Mr Swinburne can do to a greater extent than justice. Yet there are some critics and not a a few(prenominal) readers who cherish a grudge against him. They do not merely hypothesise that in the later stages of his temptation he showed a certain obtuseness, and that, to utter pedantic anyy, he acted with unjustifiable precipitance and violence no one, I suppose, denies that. But, notwithstanding when they admit that he was not of a jealous temper, they consider that he was easily jealous they seem to think that it was inexcusable in him to feel any suspicion of his married woman at all and they blame him for never suspecting Iago or asking him for evidence. I refer to this attitude of mind chiefly in order to draw attention to certain points in the story. It comes part from inattention (for Othello did suspect Iago and did ask him for evidence) partly from a misconstruction of the textbook which makes Othello appear jealous long before he really is so Endnote 2 and partly from failure to realise certain essential facts. I pull up stakes begin with these. 1. Othello, we have seen, was trustful, and thorough in his trust. He put undefiled confidence in the honesty of Iago, who had not only been his companion in arms, but, as he believed, had just proved his faithfulness in the question of the marriage. This confidence was misplaced, and we happen to know it but it was no sign of lunacy in Othello. 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 t rustful and simple, it would have been quite unnatural in him to be unmoved by the warnings of so honest a friend, warnings offered with extreme wavering and manifestly from a friends sense of duty. Endnote 3 Any husband would have been roily by them. 2. Iago does not bring these warnings to a husband who had lived with a wife for months and years and knew her like his sister or his bosom-friend.