Custom Written Term Papers: The Loves in Othello -- Othello essays

The Loves in Othello  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   In William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello the main love of the play is betrayed and undermined by the cunning and evil Iago. This essay seeks to find and explore the examples of love in this play.    Francis Ferguson in â€Å"Two Worldviews Echo Each Other† describes the love existing between the protagonist and his wife and how it is an easy prey for the antagonist:    When Othello sums up their innocent infatuation, we must feel that he is more accurate than he knows:    She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them.    Othello and Desdemona are so attractive that we tend to see them only as they see each other: the noble Moor, the pure white maiden. But Shakespeare shows their love, even here at the very beginning, as dreamy, utterly defenseless in a world that contains Iago. . . .(133)    The virtue of love is most perfectly illustrated within the character and actions of the heroine Desdemona. Angela Pitt in â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies† finds â€Å"love† as one of the qualities which the heroine of the drama possesses:    Handbooks of the period explain in some detail what is required of the ideal wife, and Desdemona seems to fulfill even the most conservative expectation. She is beautiful and also humble:    A maiden never bold Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion Blushed at herself. (I.iii.)    Her concern for Cassio shows her generosity, for she will intercede for him with Othello. She is wise, and also a ‘true and loving’ wife – ‘the sweetest innocent that e’er did lift up eye’. (44-45)    David Bevington in William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies describes how â€Å"love† is at... ...as deep as his love for Desdemona prior to Iago’s machinations.    WORKS CITED    Bevington, David, ed. William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies. New York: Bantam Books, 1980.    Coles, Blanche. Shakespeare’s Four Giants. Rindge, New Hampshire: Richard Smith Publisher, 1957.    Ferguson, Francis. â€Å"Two Worldviews Echo Each Other.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare: The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p.: n.p., 1970.    Pitt, Angela. â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare’s Women. N.p.: n.p., 1981.    Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.