Othello (Vol. 35) | Harry Keyishian (essay date 1995)
Harry Keyishian (essay date 1995)
SOURCE: "Destructive Revenge in Julius Caesar and Othello," in The Shapes of Revenge: Victimization, Vengence, and Vindictiveness in Shakespeare, 1995, pp. 81-99.
[In the following excerpt, Keyishian centers on Othello's interpretation of love and revenge.]
THE SOUL OF OTHELLO
Othello is in many ways an extended meditation on revenge. As we will see, Shakespeare gives us a full-scale portrait of vindictiveness in the figure of Iago; but he also shows us, in Othello himself, the emergence of vindictive trends in a character constitutionally devoted to affirmative goals. Once separated from those goals, however, and convinced Desdemona has betrayed him, Othello feels sullied by her very existence. He kills her both to avenge himself and to redeem the world.
Although the revenges practiced by Iago and Othello are both corrupt and destructive, they differ in their...
[The entire page is 3158 words long]
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