Othello Shakespeare The assassination of innocence and real lov

The assassination of innocence, trust and real love by a cynical and maliciously motivated maliciousness, which regards the very existence of innocence and beauty as its motivation: 'the kingdom of hell'.

In The Tragedy of Othello, William Shakespeare tells the tale of the “noble Moor” whose honor and innocence bring about his downfall. Shakespeare writes of the power of jealousy, and the art of masterful deception and trickery.
Shakespeare shows the feelings of Othello’s embittered right-hand man of, Iago, who feels he is passed over for a promotion and swears his revenge. He proceeds to manipulate his friends, enemies, and family into doing his bidding without any of them ever realizing his ultimate goal.
Iago's manipulative malignity is a main factor in the tragic disaster but it also serves to highlight through contrast the alternative values in the play, amongst which one can include innocence and real love.
The first scenes introduce the primary plot. Iago encourages Roderigo to rouse Brabantio to see Desdamona’s elopement with Othello.

Othello chose Cassio over Iago as his second in demand.
The secondary plot, Barbantio wanted the powerful senators to condemn Othello for wooing Desdamona.
Desdamona declares that her love for the Moor is free from external influence.

The next act opens with Iago plotting with Roderigo to kill Cassio.

He makes Othello believe that his new wife, the innocent Desdemona, is committing adultery with his newly promoted officer Michael Cassio. After this seed of jealousy has been planted, Othello’s mind takes its course in determining the true outcome, with a little more nudging from Iago.

Iago pushed Othello to strangle rather than poison Desdamona.
During Othello’s insanity, he still tries to justify his misdeeds honorably, seeing them as the only way to mend the situation. Iago’s artful manipulation of Othello’s mind is done in such a way that Othello no longer realizes what he is doing. Angered by the “proof” Iago gives him, Othello does what he believes was honorable in his situation. When he wishes to kill his wife, it is not because he wants it to end that way, but rather because he feels it is the only way to clear the sins the she has committed. Before he kills her Othello says, “Justice to break her sword! One more, one more!/ Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,/ And love thee after.” (114). Here he is saying that he kills her out of an act for justice, despite the fact that he still loves her, because it is the honorable thing to do. When Othello learns the truth behind Iago’s treachery, he is not able to kill him because already he has seen the consequences of killing a person he loves. Instead, he leaves Iago to the authorities. He then proceeds to right the wrongs he has committed in the most honorable manner he can think of, and he kills himself.

In The Tragedy of Othello, Shakespeare shows that it is not the action Othello takes that makes him honorable, but his inner nature that plays the most important role of his honor. Shakespeare proves honor is the basis of Othello’s character and it can be seen throughout the entire play. He is calm and trusting of his loved ones. He his respected by the people he knows, and never wavers when he feels a cause is just. The only reason Shakespeare begins to show otherwise is, because the audience knows the truth behind Iago’s manipulations. If the audience was never shown that Iago was the one who put forth the plan of Othello’s destruction, they never would have hesitated to say that Othello was an honorable man. From the scene in which Othello enters the play, to his final words, Othello only does what he believes is honorable in every situation.
In Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Othello, Othello is a man who is still truly honorable, despite the course of action he takes to resolve his perceived problem.

Throughout the novel, up until his insanity, Othello is described as a temperate man whose honor does not allow him to believe assumptions unless he has been shown proof. Firstly, when the men of Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, confront Othello’s men, Othello calmly says, “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.” (10). Othello is confronted on the matter of his elopement with Desdemona with force and with words. Not only is he very cool about his dealings with violence, but also when he is asked to tell the story of how he had Desdemona fall in love with him he states the truth, and he doesn’t leave out any details of how he accomplished it. He openly admits that had any other man told his story, that man also would have won her heart. Only a truly honorable man can admit that it was a story, and not his personality that truly won the woman’s heart. Othello’s honor is shown by his trust in the people he knows and loves. When Iago tells Othello that he believes Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair, Othello does not believe Iago initially. He tells Iago that he will not believe him unless evidence is found and shown to him. This evidence does come to him.

Although it is false, he has no way of knowing the evidence had been manipulated into bolstering his jealous thoughts. Othello’s honor is also what brings him to the beginning of his collapse.

Although Othello’s path to insanity leads him to perform dishonorable deeds, he is still honored and respected by others, who come to understand the reason for his deeds. In the beginning of the play the Duke of Venice seeks direct conversation with Othello about the invading Turks. Senators, such as Desdemona’s father, have not yet been contacted about the threat. The Duke respects Othello’s honor and capability and does not feel it necessary to confer with other senators in the area. Even after Othello’s evil misdeeds people still respect him. After Othello has killed Desdemona and himself, Cassio says, “This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;/ For he was great of heart.” (128).
Although Othello has killed his innocent wife, trusted a guilty Iago, and even ordered Cassio’s own death, he is still respected, and honored for his heart and his mind

The final act climaxes in the revelation of Iago’s multi-faceted scheme. Othello confronts the truth about Iago’s manipulation and Desdamona’s innocence and kills himself. Othello is a story of malevolence and manipulation.Iago the villain plots to bring Othello to doom and destruction..
The play is the tragedy of a noble outsider, a princely black African who achieves great stature in an alien society entirely by his own abilities, commander-in-chief of the Venetian army.
It is also the story of the man not entirely sure of his position in this alien culture who tries to cement it by marrying a rich white Venetian aristocrat.
It is an intense study of what happens to two lovers who depend very greatly on each other, as well as, an intense exploration of the psychological implications of race and gender issues for such a couple when they have distanced themselves from their respective societies.
In addition to being the tragedy of Othello, the play is also the tragedy of Othello’s wife, Desdamona who believes as he does that she should be submissive, obedient, and faithful.
But the situation is self-defeating for both.
Her fidelity breeds insecurity in Othello, possibly because he doubts that his white wife and new society can fully accept him, and it creates a set of contradictions for Desdamona.
She demonstrates her love for Othello by leaving her father without his permission, simultaneously rebelling against Venetian social values.
We might question Iago’s motive for misleading Othello into doubting his wife’s fidelity.

This action may be the play’s central puzzle:
Why does Othello trust his friend more than his beloved Desdamona?
We can see the cleverness of Iago’s hypocrisy, but somehow this in itself does not account for his success.
Why is Othello so ready to believe him?
By and large Othello and Iago are the two characters at the crux of the play.
It is a story of human frailty. It is the story of destruction of an innocent and real love.
Shakespeare portrays real love and innocence
Iago draws Roderigo and then Brabantio into his service.
Shakespeare portrays real love and innocence principally, but not exclusively, through the characterization of Desdemona and Othello, and through a whole range of dramatic techniques: their language, behavior, their interaction with other characters, the imagery applied to them etc.
The portrayal of the qualities is a complex one which is significant in the following ways. Firstly, the assassination of innocence and real love helps drive the play towards its tragic conclusion, although it is matter of debate whether the principal cause of the disaster is the assassination of innocence or the creativity of wickedness. Secondly, the values of innocence and real love comprise values which are dramatized in opposition to those represented principally by Iago; each illuminates the other. This is one of the conflicts central to the dramatic action. The contrast between innocence and maliciousness helps to create the tragic emotions of fear and pity in the final scene.

It is an over-simplification of Desdemona's characterization to see her simply in terms of innocence and her real love, however, these are significant aspects of her characterization. Clearly she is innocent in the most obvious sense of being innocent of the charge of dirty betrayal: 'a guiltless death, I die'. The fact of her innocence is an important part of the tragedy. She is an innocent victim. Her innocence also helps to create the dramatic tension whereby the audience helplessly pities her inability to convince Othello of the truth of which they are aware.

However, the significance of her innocence goes beyond this. Her life has been sheltered, 'I am a child to chiding' and she is clearly removed from experience of the world as characterized by the more worldly Emilia: 'Is he not jealous' Emilia quickly asserts to Desdemona, who is unable to accept this. Desdemona is innocent of a world in which men 'belch us' or 'break out in peevish jealousies'. Certainly this refusal to acknowledge the significance of Othello's behavior until it is too late is perhaps naive and unworldly

and contributes to the inevitability of the tragedy but it is also a positive value in the play. It is a touchstone of trust and loyalty which contrast with the deceptions committed by Iago. Desdemona is 'innocent' in being removed from evil and the ways of the world although this makes her more vulnerable to them.

It is important to recognize the strength of Desdemona and her independence. This emphasizes the significance of the portrayal of innocence in her characterization. Innocence and real love are not synonymous with weakness and fragility. For example, her appearance in Act 1 Scene iii is characterized by a simplicity which contrasts with the self-conscious rhetoric of Othello, the passionate excesses of Brabantio and the deceitful if demotic energy of Iago:

'My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided beauty...'

Her speech is sincere, open and transparent. She has no intention to deceive. This is the same spirit of her artless response to Othello's striking her; 'I have not deserved this.' These are precisely the values which continually pre-occupy Othello even when he doubts her and calls her 'whore'. Her innocence is powerfully evoked, not least by her appearance on stage at key moments in Othello's decline: 'If she be false, then heaven mocks itself'. This construction of Desdemona is suggested throughout by the imagery of purity, innocence, light, whiteness and heaven with which she is associated, 'that whiter skin of hers than snow', ''Oh the world hath not a sweeter creature.'

But these are not merely passive virtues. The same strength which Desdemona has shown in standing up independently before her father she also shows in refusing to accept the cynical view of Emilia that women should learn from men and imitate their immorality. Rather the strength of Desdemona's innocence makes her determined 'Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend'. This may seem unworldly, unrealistic, innocent but whereas Iago wishes to turn 'virtue to pitch' Desdemona wishes to 'mend' the 'bad'. The tragedy is that such is the power of Iago's malignity that she does not triumph (it is a tragedy) but her innocent faith not only in Othello but in these values bear witness in the play to that which is good, innocent, 'removed from evil'. Similarly, her refusal to say the word 'whore' perhaps displays an unworldly innocence but, in a play about the persuasive powers of words, the way labeling influences perception such innocence is also a denial of the corruption, hatred and debasing of relationships expressed by that word.
Before considering the portrayal of innocence and real love through Othello's characterization, a point should be made about Roderigo, for his manipulation by Iago provides a dramatic parallel with that of Othello's. In a sense Iago demonstrates his persuasive skill, his cynical world view, his duplicity in his interactions with Roderigo before he poisons Othello's mind. It establishes Iago's character and identity. It helps prepare the audience for what is to come and suggests that he will be able to carry out his plotting which leads to the tragic conclusion. Roderigo is not innocent; he seeks to sleep with a married woman, is prepared to dupe and cheat and even murder his way to her bed, 'Tis but a man gone'. However, it is clear that Roderigo is naive and a fool, easily duped by Iago's flattery, enticement and cynical generalizations on the motives of men and the appetites of women. A foolish man, of no particular virtue or honesty is quickly enmeshed in the web of evil scheming. It extends the dramatization of Iago's destructive influence beyond Othello (as does his later duping of Cassio and of everybody in the scene of Roderigo's murder).

The portrayal of real love and innocence through Othello is complex.. One aspect of innocence is folly or gullibility and certainly Othello is characterized as such by Iago ,

'these credulous fools', by Emilia, 'What should a fool do with such a wife?' and indeed by Othello himself, 'O fool! Fool! Fool!'. But what is the nature of his folly? Iago's success in the temptation scene is credible because of the psychological complexity of his strategies. Othello is not quickly deceived, but his mind is insidiously poisoned in which the dramatic time of thirty minutes is an intense masterpiece of psychological realism. Therefore, Othello is not a dolt, a gullible fool, by nature.

However, in one important sense Othello is portrayed as a fool. He allows the destructive passion of jealousy to prey on his reason and judgment. The play dramatizes how Othello's passionate nature gradually overtakes his rational poise and control. Othello's folly is the folly of every man/woman who allows their passion to dominate their judgment. If his folly is partly responsible for the catastrophe, Shakespeare has presented the folly not as an individual flaw of Othello's character but a condition of humanity when the balance between reason and passion is destroyed. This leads to replacing his trust in Desdemona with a trust in Iago, influenced by the latter's generalizing 'truths'.

Real love and innocence are portrayed in the presentation of Othello in other significant ways.
His relationship with Desdemona is portrayed as one between 'innocents' and has a certain naivety in their intense idealization of each other. It is a relationship between a warrior inexperienced in the affairs of the heart and an oft wooed but sexually inexperienced and enraptured young woman.
Othello's lack of experience of domesticity, of women, of love, is a further aspect of his naivety, literally his lack of experience:

'And little of this great world can I speak

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle'

He is, according to Iago, 'of a constant, loving, noble nature', and on this occasion we can perhaps trust his judgment, however ironic it becomes in the light of Othello's subsequent cruelty. Before Iago's poisoning, he is presented as innocent from evil, but his lack of 'domestic' experience, his loving of an idealized Desdemona and his naivety of the ways of Venetian women, being an outsider, which Iago exploits, all make him vulnerable to Iago's influence. This in turn leads to Othello being torn between his love for Desdemona and his desire for revenge, his perception of her as the sweet creature and as a whore; his passion rules his mind so that he displays the qualities of the cruel barbarian. The tragic outcome is sealed. It is a tragedy in which worldly self-centered cynicism plays upon innocence, naivety, and yes, perhaps pride and a capacity for both self-dramatization and intense passion, to destroy ' a daily beauty...which makes me ugly'.

The catastrophic conclusion of Othello is then a result of a conjunction of factors in which naivety, folly, innocence as well as pride and malignancy, perhaps evil, all play a part. It is essential to the overall tragic effect that while we fear the malicious and destructive energy of Iago and deprecate the weaknesses of folly, pride and unrestrained passion displayed by Othello, we witness the positive qualities of honesty, innocence, trust and artlessness and pity the destruction of those who portray them in the play.