Download The plays of Shakespeare move us because they present

“The plays of Shakespeare move us because they present us with realistic depictions
of what it means to be human.”
Use Othello to focus a discussion on the extent to which this is true. You may confine
your discussion to Othello or include other Shakespearean plays you have studied.
Shakespeare’s Othello is a powerful play due to its realistic portrayal of human
nature. This portrayal moves the audience as the characters of the play often deal with
issues that affect the audience in everyday life. In this essay I will explore what it
means to be human and how Shakespeare’s depiction of human nature makes his
plays so powerful to his audiences.
Humans are complex creatures in the essence that their lives can be incredibly
influenced by many issues. In Othello, these issues are highlighted, especially love,
honour, societal expectation and conflict. These four issues are often intertwined and
usually cause great distress to the characters, more often than not, leading to their
demise. For example, the “virtuous Desdemona” fell in love with Othello, the Moor.
She eloped with him, against her fathers will, causing her to fall from grace in
patrician Venetian society, being disowned by her father and putting herself entirely
at the mercy of her husband. This dependence and isolation ultimately leads to her
murder, yet even as she lies dying, she protects her murderous husband, saying she
committed the crime herself, begging her maid to “commend me to my kind lord”
rather than naming him as the killer. The character of Desdemona clearly captures an
aspect of human nature- its frailty and its complexity. Desdemona goes against her
father and her society to marry a black man she loves. This love of him causes her to
protect him, even as she lies dying she claims “no one, I myself” has murdered her.
Shakespeare effectively uses Desdemona to show how people can be affected by
complex societal and personal issues; in the instance of Desdemona, her demise.
Shakespeare also captures the element of human weakness in his plays, accentuating
his protagonist’s flaws, particularly in his tragedies. This fatal flaw always leads to
the protagonist’s downward spiral and demise. For example. Othello is ‘of a free and
open nature, that thinks men honest that but seem to be so”. I ago manipulates
Othello’s gullibility to his advantage, driving Othello insane with the thought that
Cassio has and will again "lie with [Desdemona], on her, what you will.” Another
example of this is Cassio, a man with a “daily beauty in his life”, whom uses the
services of a courtesan. Iago uses this vice to “ensnare a fly as great as Cassio”,
making him appear to be a serial-philanderer who has seduced Desdemona.
This harmatia affects all the protagonists of Shakespeare’s tragedies, most notably,
Macbeth, who is destroyed by his unchecked ambition which “O’er leaps” itself,
leading him to murder the rightful king and condemn himself to eternal damnation.
Likewise, in King Lear, Lear is blinded by his arrogance and allows England to be
corrupted by his evil daughters, destroying the natural order of the world and
destroying himself simultaneously. In Antony and Cleopatra, Antony, a brilliant
general, was destroyed by his love of Cleopatra, “flying after her” in cowardly retreat,
abandoning his men at the battle of Actium. This ultimately leads to both their
demises. Shakespeare stresses these flaws as he shows the audience that even the
righteous Othello, the daring Antony, the honourable Lear and the courageous
Macbeth, characters of great nobleness, can succumb to their failings if they are not
kept in check.
Flaws and human frailty are a huge aspect of being human which Shakespeare
accentuates in all his tragedies, especially in Othello. This is because Shakespeare is
constantly alluding to the first flaw of humanity, where Eve is seduced by the devil
into eating the forbidden fruit. This is alluded to in Othello with Iago as the devil’s
representative, persuading Othello that the ‘divine Desdemona’ is just ‘a cunning
whore of Venice’, being “topp’d” by Cassio. Othello allows Iago to poison his mind
with lies and deceit, letting him nurture his “green eyed monster, which doth mock the
meat it feeds on” and ultimately lets it destroy both himself and his chaste wife. This
initial flaw of humanity prevents humans from being perfect, but, like the character
Othello, it serves as a warning to beware of ones vices, as if not controlled, they may
cause your downfall, as was the case of the ignorant Eve and Othello.
Shakespeare writes his tragedies as a warning to all society, but in particular, the
society of his time, the Jacobeans. By presenting characters destroyed by their
harmatia, he shows the audience to beware of their failings and to be aware of their
appointed positioning in society, appointed to them by God. In Othello, towards the
end of the play, Othello is guilty of hubris, taking it upon himself to be judge, jury and
executioner of Desdemona’s ‘infidelity’, seeing it as a necessity “else she’ll betray
more men.” Because of this hubris, Othello strangles his innocent wife to death and is
condemned to be engulfed in liquid fire and be “roast in sulphur” as he did not heed
God’s hierarchy. To go against this order was to go against God and to disrupt all of
humanity and nature, accentuated in all of Shakespeare’s tragedies; In Othello, the
darkness of the night making it utterly impossible to see, in Macbeth and King Lear,
the violent storms mirroring their countries chaos. All events show how nature has
been thrown into discord by the protagonist’s actions, all of whom defied God’s
appointed hierarchy and as a result, met their doom.
Shakespeare’s Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most powerful plays due to its realistic
depictions of human nature. Although centuries have passed since the time of
Shakespeare, his plays still hold the same relevance as they had during their first
performance as his depictions of human character are timeless, possessing the same
themes and issues that affect 21st century society today. It is this timelessness that
makes his plays so compelling.