How does Shakespeare present love in Act 1 of Othello PDF

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How does Shakespeare present love in Act 1 of Othello...

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How does Shakespeare present love in Act 1 of Othello? Shakespeare skilfully presents love as a very controversial issue in act 1 of Othello, creating subtle nuances in its nature. Exploring many aspects of love, the experienced playwright portrays multiple acts and scenes of love throughout the play. The most obvious of these, of course, is of that between Othello and Desdemona. Having eloped without Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, permission, the pair continues their relationship against her father’s wishes. Shakespeare presents love here with a healing quality, ‘she loved me for the dangers I had passed…. I loved her that she did pity them’, creating a tone of mutual sympathy in times of despair, along with protective love. Keeping Brabantio unknowing of the elopement at first, Shakespeare provokes anger in the father, as he does not approve of her relationship with the ‘moor’, a racial slur used towards black people during the 17th century. Referring to Othello as this throughout the play, Brabantio is not the only character to call him this, although Shakespeare makes it clear that Brabantio is using the derogatory language to undermine and establish power of a too powerful war general, Othello. Brabantio, having established about the marriage between Desdemona and Othello, he angrily declares that Desdemona, ‘is abused, stol’n from me and corrupted by spells’. In this outburst of passion, Shakespeare uses diction to subtly comment on the sorcerous power of love. Brabantio’s claim evokes negative connotations associated with witchcraft and black magic, highly taboo topics amidst the 17th century and very much apposed of in society. Witchcraft was a punishable crime and Brabantio believes that there was no other way Othello could have ‘stolen’ his daughter from him other than with the use of supernatural powers. His claim establishes a strong sense of parental love, apparent throughout act 1. Another aspect of love that Shakespeare explores, he establishes strong, dramatic tension between Brabantio and Othello as Desdemona’s father sees Othello as a pirate stealing his jewel, ‘…with all my heart I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel’. The passionate, possessive words of Brabantio initiate an attributive atmosphere of dismissed parental love. Iago is a very different character altogether; a misanthropic, he seems to loathe all that exists around him and lacks the love that most other people experience. Frustrated by who he is, he represents a manifestation of how someone clever and able cannot climb the status ladder, as he seems stuck forever below Othello, and destined to be forever overlooked. He is also a narcissistic, manipulative character, centrally revolving around himself and extremely complex. He seeks to contaminate love and dislikes others being happy, so seeks to destroy it. Iago could be suggested to be a machiavel, a dramatic construct that is recognized as an evil, manipulative force sometimes known as a Malcontent. A machiavel is product of human frustration, and seethes anger at the limitations of their position reduces them to, very much comparable to Iago. The literary critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge points at the ‘motiveless malignity of Iago’, exploring his profound narcissism and self-centred qualities. Coleridge suggests that he lacks empathy, and is possibly the antithesis of love as

he has the ultimate cynic view of it, and challenges Othello and Desdemona’s idealistic view on romance. He is portrayed to be as much about love as he is about hatred, and Shakespeare very skilfully presents this complexity within Iago’s character....