Othello - William Shakespeare

This is a scary one for me as I have never wrote a blog post on Shakespeare or his writing, which is ironic as he is one of my favorite writers. He has such a unique way of writing with such a beautiful language. After studying Othello and knowing the play inside out I couldn't think of a better play of his to write about for the first time! After Othello I can grantee there will be many more posts about Shakespeare!

Othello explores so many issues in society and although it was written and performed hundreds of years ago these are issues our society of the 21st century still face! It explores issues such as racism, jealousy and distrust. I could go on for hours about what the message(s) behind this play as there is so much William Shakespeare was trying to tell his audience, I will try not to go on for too long and stick to the main points that stood out to me personally and if you have read Othello I would love to know your thoughts on it!

Racism is explored the whole way through the play. Othello is a black man who married a white woman Desdemona, during this time this was seen as 'unnatural'. As a character Othello is calm, peaceful and reserved. Othello loved Desdemona, I am going to try and not spoil the end, however despite what happened at the end he loved her. When I was reading and studying this I felt that the whole plays main message was that we need to be more accepting and loving to others who are a different race, culture or religion. Othello was a black man and so his marriage to a white woman was not accepted despite how much he loved her and how well he treated her. If we judge someone on where they are from or what they look like instead of who they really are we could be cheating ourselves from potentially getting to know an amazing person. It sounds so cliche yet it is so true and is something we all need to learn and practice more in our lives.

As I previously mentioned distrust and jealousy was also explored in the play. Othello is a trusting man but that was taken advantage of and was turned into a weakness of his by Iago. Iago... THE WORST character in the whole play. If it wasn't for his jealous and evil nature, all the chaos that happened would not have happened. Othello seen Iago as an 'honest' man and so naturally he believes all the lies Iago plants in his head. There is so much sympathy for Othello because he cannot see through Iago's lies. Due to Othello being a black man in a time where racism was normal (even though it should not have been!) he gets his identity from his military work and his marriage, without one he doesn't have the other as he struggles to separate the two which we see through out the play. The fact Iago tries to ruin his marriage making Othello lose his identity his heartbreaking. The point I am trying to get across here is that we as people can be too trusting and the majority of us always try to see the good in everyone and in situations but the sad truth is, that isn't the case. There are people like Iago who have the motive to tear others down and ruin the good things in others lives mainly because of jealousy.

I personally do not think Iago planned for his games and lies to get so out of hand. I feel like Shakespeare wanted to send the message to his audience that we really need to 'think before we speak' I know that is something we have all heard many times in our lives yet it has such meaning and truth. I see it like this, we have a choice in our life - we can either be Othello, someone who aspires for peach, love and calmness or we can be an Iago, someone with the aim to bring others down and destroy the good things in life. The choice is yours, who do you choose?

I could go on and on about this play but instead I am going to stop typing and leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the play 'O beware my Lord, of jealousy for it is the green eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on'

In honour of George Floyd who was a black man and was tragically killed by two police officers - I felt that because Othello mainly focuses on racism that I had to leave this post in his honour, such a heartbreaking world we live in. May he rest in peace and may we as a world change our ways, views and actions and stop racism.