Academic literature on the topic 'Othello'

This paper provides a brief outline of the reception history of Othello in Poland, focusing on the way the character of the Moor of Venice is constructed on the page, in the first-published nineteenth-century translation by Józef Paszkowski, and on the stage, in two twentieth-century theatrical adaptations that provide contrasting images of Othello: 1981/1984 televised Othello, dir. Andrzej Chrzanowski and the 2011 production of African Tales Based on Shakespeare, in which Othello’s part is played by Adam Ferency (dir. Krzysztof Warlikowski). The paper details the political and social contexts of each of these stage adaptations, as both of them employ brownface and blackface to visualise Othello’s “political colour.” The function of blackface and brownface is radically different in these two productions: in the 1981/1984 Othello brownface works to underline Othello’s overall sense of alienation, while strengthening the existing stereotypes surrounding black as a skin colour, while the 2011 staging makes the use of blackface as an artificial trick of the actor’s trade, potentially unmasking the constructedness of racial prejudices, while confronting the audience with their own pernicious racial stereotypes.

This study aimed at describing Othello’s deterioration in William Shakespeare’s The Moor of Venice through the intrinsic aspects of the drama. This study adopted structuralism approach and the theory of wholeness to answer the problem issued. This study used descriptive qualitative design that the data were taken from William Shakespeare the Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice edited by Alvin Kernan (1963). The results denote that Othello has flaws which lead to his deterioration. Gullible and excessive in loving his wife are the flaws that produce jealousy. Finally, without knowing the fact, Othello kills his wife, and he also kills himself after realizing the truth. The flaws of Othello are identified through plot, character, thought/theme, diction, rhythm, and spectacle.

The study describes Othello’s verbal defences by means of Perry London’s Verbal Defences theory as reflected in William Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice. The study was a content analysis whose primary data were words, phrases, sentences and dialogues in the play. The secondary data were articles discussing the Othello, the Moor of Venice. Data were analyzed through determining Othello’s arguments on ego verbal defence mechanisms using Perry London’s Verbal Defences theory. This study revealed that three elements of verbal defences, namely, emotional insulation, intellectualization, and rationalization are experienced by Othello. They operate unconsciously and these mechanisms neutralize the upsetting impact of threatening ideas by distorting reality. In distorting reality, ego takes some extreme ways. One of those ways is “talking away” the anxiety stimuli as well as by the other means of obscuring and retreating from reality.

Humans are always in touch with the needs in this life. In order to survive, one of the most important examples is the need for safety needs. The phenomenal drama Othello by Shakespeare was chosen as the main data source in this research. This research aimed to analyze the unfulfilled of safety needs in the form of anxiety and its impact on the main character in Shakespeare's drama "Othello". This drama was set in 1603 with a tragedy and was written by the world-famous playwright William Shakespeare. The story that ended in tragedy is inseparable from the anxiety used by others to overthrow power and the Othello family. With these problems, the researchers explored the anxiety factor by using Maslow's psychological theory about the hierarchy of needs, especially at the level of safety needs. This research used qualitative descriptive method because the data collection technique used is to describe the analysis through words and sentences that exist in the data source. The approach used in this research was psychological approach in a literary work. The results found from this research that there is an anxiety factor that underlie Othello's feeling that he is always threatened. Jealousy is a factor that causes anxiety in the character "Othello" which focused on household relationships. This excessive anxiety then causes impacts in the form of misunderstanding, the death of Othello's wife, and Othello's suicide.

Sam Gold’s production of Othello explores the interrelated themes of war and the cultural construction of identity by foregrounding the play’s encounters between Christianity and Islam. Instead of focusing solely on Othello’s race, Gold’s political and ethical reevaluation of Shakespeare’s Othello examines the many facets of blackness, from a color assigned to people to the epistemological state of being in the dark.

This paper examines how Arab British novelist Jamal Mahjoub appropriates and interpolates Shakespeare’s Othello. Specifically, this paper argues that Mahjoub’s historical novel The Carrier (1998) re-writes Shakespeare’s Othello in a way that enables the novelist to comment on some of the themes that remain unexplored in Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Mahjoub appropriates tropes, motifs and episodes from Shakespeare’s play which include places like Cyprus and Aleppo, Othello’s identity, abusive/foul language, animalistic imagery, and motifs like the eye, sorcery/witchcraft, the storm and adventurous travels. Unlike Othello’s fabled and mythical travels and adventures, Mahjoub renders Rashid al-Kenzy’s as realistic and true to life in a way that highlights his vulnerability. In addition, the ill-fated marriage between Othello and Desdemona is adapted in Mahjoub’s novel in the form of a Platonic love that is founded on a scientific dialogue between Rashid al-Kenzy and Sigrid Heinesen, a poet and philosopher woman from Jutland. In this way, Desdemona’s claim that she sees Othello’s visage in his mind, a claim that is strongly undermined by Othello’s irrationality, jealousy and belief in superstitions during the course of the play, is emphasized and foregrounded in Mahjoub’s novel.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on leadership, emotions and organizations by examining Shakespeare’s Othello. While much of the existing literature focuses exclusively on the external dimensions of leadership, this paper adds a new dimension by focusing as well on the internal workings of the mind of the leader, here that of Othello. This focus is made possible by postulating that the subordinate Iago — whose relationship to Othello is central to the plot — represents an inner character within Othello’s mind, as well as an external character. As an inner character, Iago fills Othello’s mind with powerful feelings of jealousy and envy, especially about an alleged relationship between Othello’s wife and his lieutenant, Cassio. Othello’s conundrum thus concerns whether he should tolerate these feelings and live with his uncertainty about his wife’s purported infidelity, or, alternatively, try to rid himself of these feelings by killing her and Cassio. Concepts from psychoanalysis and a variety of other traditions are drawn on. Following this, there is an exploration of a contemporary reference, that of the demise of the Gucci family dynasty. The paper ends with an examination of the implications and a conclusion.

Despite twenty-first century research advances regarding the role of Islam in Shakespeare’s plays, questions remain concerning the extent of William Shakespeare’s knowledge of Muslim culture and his use of that knowledge in writing Othello. I suggest that the playwright had access to numerous sources that informed his depiction of Othello as a man divided between Christian faith and Islamic duty, a division which resulted in the Moor’s destruction. Sharia, a code of moral and legal conduct for Muslims based on the Qur’an’s teachings, appears to be a guiding force in Othello’s ultimate quest for honor. The advance of the Ottoman Empire into Europe with the threat of conquest and forced conversion to Islam was a source of fascination and fear to Elizabethan audiences. Yet, as knowledge increased, so did tolerance to a certain degree. But the defining line between Christian and Muslim remained a firm one that could not be breached without risking the loss of personal identity and spiritual sanctity. Denizens of the Middle East and followers of the Islamic faith, as well as travel encounters between eastern and western cultures, influenced Shakespeare’s treatment of this theme. His play Othello is possibly the only drama of this time period to feature a Moor protagonist who wavers between Christian and Muslim beliefs. To better understand the impetus for Othello’s murder of his wife, the influence of Islamic culture is considered, and in particular, the system of Sharia that governs social, political, and religious conventions of Muslim life, as well as Othello’s conflicting loyalties between Islam as the religion of his youth, and Christianity, the faith to which he had been converted. From Act I celebrating his marriage through Act V recording his death, Othello is overshadowed by fears of who he really is—uncertainty bred of his conversion to Christian faith and his potential to revert to Islamic duty. Without indicating Sharia directly, Shakespeare hints at its subtle influence as Othello struggles between two faiths and two theologies. In killing Desdemona and orchestrating Michael Cassio’s death in response to their alleged adultery, Othello obeys the Old Testament injunction for personal sanctification. But in reverting to Muslim beliefs, he attempts to follow potential Sharia influence to reclaim personal and societal honor.

Othello has been the play that seems to speak to current issues of racism and sexism for the last couple of decades. Recent Indian productions have stretched its relevancies further, particularly addressing the politics of identity, of individual and state, of belonging and othering. The 2014 award-winning Assamiya film Othello (We Too Have Our Othellos) appropriates and radicalizes the main concerns of the play to embody and critique the movements for self-determination that continue to rage in the state. The article examines this unusual Indian adaptation of Shakespeare that locates the play directly within the public sphere of the politics of the state through its singular focus on Othello as an ‘outsider’ figure paralleled by other such figures of contemporary Assamese society. It will contextualize the discussion of this film, its production and positioning within the film industry of Assam and attempt to define the nature of its adaptation. It will also glance at its similarities with the earlier film In Othello (2003), which too connected Shakespeare and Assam to illustrate the volatile configurations of the outsider/insider status in contemporary India.

This paper provides a new approach to Othello’s story in Caryl Phillips’ polyphonic novel The Nature of Blood (1997). The fictional Othello finds himself at the crossroads between different cultures and is struggling to define his identity. Making use of Gloria Anzaldúa’s borderlands theory as exposed in her work Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), this study explores Phillips’ Othello as a borderlands character. Accordingly, it is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that, as a borderlands character-narrator, Othello succeeds in bringing together the two hitherto conflicting cultures that he knows (Africa and Venice) through storytelling. Indeed, his narrative proves a transborder testimony that contributes to creating a debate forum where cultural hybridity is celebrated.um where cultural hybridity is celebrated.