Othello and Heroism Essay -- Othello essays

Othello and Heroism In William Shakespe atomic number 18s tragedy Othello the audience finds heroism exhibited not only by the hero, the Moor, but also by other characters in the drama. A. C. Bradley, in his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, defines a woman character, Desdemona, as a hero in the play from the very outset There is by chance a certain excuse for our failure to rise to Shakespeares meaning, and to realize how extraordinary and splendid a thing it was in a gentle Venetian girl to love Othello, and to assail fortune with such a downright violence and storm as is expected only in a hero. It is that when kickoff we hear of her marriage we rich person not yet seen the Desdemona of the later Acts and therefore we do not perceive how astonishing this love and boldness must have been in a maiden so quiet and submissive. (191) A characters attitude toward the most fearful foe death itself is unquestionably a criterion for judging a heroic type from a non-heroic type. Helen Gardner in Othello A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune considers Iagos wife Emilia to be a true hero of the play because of her fearless outlook on death itself Emilias silence while her mistress lived is fully soluble in terms of her character. She shares with her husband the generalizing trick and is well used to domestic scenes. The jealous, she knows, are not ever jealous for the cause But jealous for they are jealous. If it was not the handkerchief it would be something else. Why disobey her husband and risk his fury? It would not do any good. This is what men are like. But Desdemona utterly sweeps away all such generalities and all caution. At this sight, Emilia ... ...y large and grand, towering above his fellows, holding a volume of force which in public security ensures pre-eminence without an effort, and in commotion reminds us rather of the fury of the elements than of the tumult of common human passion. (168) WORKS CITED Bradley, A. C.. Shak espearean Tragedy. New York Penguin, 1991. Gardner, Helen. Othello A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from The Noble Moor. British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Canada University of Toronto Press, 1957.