#Othello plot skin
Some have stated that the color of the skin makes no difference when it comes to human psychology. However, critics continue to debate if race is crucial to the play or if it is merely incidental. In Shakespeare's time, black actors were not used in the role. As a matter of fact, rumors abound that during some of the earliest productions of this play, audiences shouted out warnings to the actor playing Othello and threatened to bring harm to Iago.Īlthough Othello is described as a Moor, a citizen of northern Africa, the play is not overtly about race. Because of this tightly constructed structure, the play's ominous mood is heightened, and the threat to both Desdemona's innocence and to the love she and Othello share is made more terrifyingĪlthough narrow in scope, Othello is widely regarded as the most moving of all of Shakespeare's great tragedies. Shakespeare's Othello is taken from just one of them, the one concerned with marital infidelity and a husband's revenge on his wife.
#Othello plot series
The Italian's creation includes a series of ten interconnected short stories. Although Shakespeare adapted the plot of his play from the sixteenth-century Italian dramatist and novelist Giraldi Cinthio's Gli Hecatommithi, the English playwright focused his attention only on certain parts of Cinthio's story. The play was written with no subplots and little humor to relieve the tension. It is one of Shakespeare's most highly concentrated and tightly constructed tragedies.
Othello is believed to have first been performed in 1604 or perhaps in 1605. With two such prominent characters so closely associated, audiences have trouble determining which of the two characters is the central figure in the play and, therefore, which one bears the greater responsibility for the tragedy. The relationship between Othello and Iago is another unusual feature of this work. With his dazzling display of villainy, the character Iago, the play's antagonist, has long fascinated students and critics of the drama. Othello has often been described as a tragedy of character, as the play's protagonist swiftly descends into a rage of jealousy that completely destroys his life. The drama focuses on the passions and personal lives of its major figures. Othello is also unique among Shakespeare's great tragedies in that it is set in a private world. If it lacks the cosmic grandeur of some of Shakespeare's other well-respected dramas, Othello nevertheless possesses a power that is perhaps more immediate and more strongly felt than that of his other plays. The fall of a proud, dignified man, the murder of a graceful, loving woman, and the unreasoning hatred of a villain, have all evoked fear and pity in audiences throughout the centuries. Othello (1604) has often been considered the most painful of Shakespeare's tragedies.
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