Othello and Heroism Essay -- Othello essays

Othello and Heroism In William Shakespeares tragedy Othello the earreach finds heroism exhibited non 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(prenominal) outset There is perhaps a certain excuse for our tribulation to rise to Shakespeares meaning, and to realize how extraordinary and splendid a amour it was in a gentle Venetian girl to love Othello, and to dishonor fortune with such a downright violence and storm as is expected only in a hero. It is that when first we hear of her wedlock we have 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 genus Emilia to be a true hero of the play be have got of her fearless anticipation on death itself Emilias silence while her woman of the street lived is fully explicable in terms of her character. She shares with her husband the generalizing trick and is fountainhead 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. wherefore disobey her husband and risk his fury? It would not do both good. This is what men are like. But Desdemona dead sweeps away all such generalities and all caution. At this sight, Emilia ... ...y large and grand, towering above his fellows, property a volume of force which in repose ensures pre-eminence without an effort, and in flicker reminds us rather of the fury of the elements than of the tumult of common human passion. (168) wh ole kit and caboodle CITED Bradley, A. C.. Shakespearean 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. reissue 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.