Themes in Othello and The winter's tale

Comparing and contrasting the themes in Othello and the winter’s tale.

Othello and The Winter’s Tale are the two from thousand of Shakespeare’s work. Othello and The Winter’s tale shared many similar themes. On the other hand, there are also different themes that have been brought by Shakespeare in his work. Othello is one of the famous plays among thousands of Shakespeare’s play. Until today, Othello has been representing in many forms such as theater, films and books. Even though, sometimes the play has been modernized in terms of languages and its setting, but Othello still bring the same themes like before. On the other hand, The Winter’s Tale has been also the famous Shakespeare’s play, even though, it is not as famous as Othello, but it brings its own themes and values in the play.

In my point of view, the main theme in Othello is love. There are many form of love that were representing in Othello. For examples, the forbidden love between Othello and Desdemona. At the beginning, their marriage was not approved by Desdemona’s father; Brabantio because of Othello’s race is different from theirs. However, Desdemona defend her love towards Othello and willing to stay with him. The climax of Desdemona’s love is when she is willing to follow Othello to Cyprus to battle with the Turks. Besides that, Roderigo is in love with Desdemona; however Roderigo love is not pure because Desdemona was not in love with him and she is someone’s wife. Roderigo is willing to kill Cassio because he believes that Cassio will ruin his chance to tackle Desdemona. Apart from that, there is also love in a marriage between Iago and his wife Emilia and Othello with Desdemona. However, their love is not pure and sincere because no trust exists. Iago believes that his wife had slept with Othello and they are having a relationship behind him. On the other hand, Othello is easily influence by Iago to believe that Desdemona is not loyal to him and having secret relationship with Cassio. Othello is also superstitious when he believes that the handkerchief is a symbol of love and virginity of women towards their men. Othello suppose to believe her wife instead of someone else. On the other hand, Desdemona’s love towards Othello is pure. This can be seen when she is willing to sacrifice her family for the sake of her love towards Othello. Sometimes, she herself does not understand about Othello’s attitude as she frequently asks questions to him. But, this shows her love towards Othello. Othello himself is dedicating his love and passion as a soldier. He is willing to fight in battles, yet sacrificing himself for the country. However, Othello is too obsessed with his career until he cannot differentiate between Desdemona’s true love and the slander that Iago told him.

The winter’s tale by William Shakespeare, also share the similar theme as Othello, which is love. In the play, there are love between king Leontes and Hermione as a husband and wife. However, King Leontes is become possessed with his jealousy as he believes that her wife is having a secret relationship with his old friend, Polixenes. The love that exists between King Leontes and Hermione is not based in trust because King Leontes is doubt with Hermione’s love towards him. He accuses his wife of infidelity, and declares that the child she is bearing must be illegitimate. However, Hermione declares that she is loyal to King Leontes and the child that she carries is his. On the other hand, there are also love that exists between King Polixenes’s son, Prince Florizel and Perdita, who happen to be the King Leontes’s daughter. Even though, at the beginning, their love is not approved by the king as he first believes that Perdita is the shepherd’s daughter. Apart from that, there are also love that based on kindness and sympathy that has been shown in this play by Paulina and her husband’s character: Lord Antigonus. They are willing to save the baby by disobeying their king.

Other theme that has been brought in The Winter’s Tale is the danger of jealousy. King Leontes is obsessed with his jealous fantasies and he accused his wife is having a relationship with his friend, King Polixenes. Without further investigation about his fantasies, King Leontes threw his pregnant wife, Hermione to prison and he refuses to declare the new-born daughter as his. The cause of his action has brought disaster to his entire family. His wife dies after received the news that their son is dead. His only daughter has missed her life of princess for over sixteen years as she has been brought up as a shepherd’s daughter. King Leontes has lost his family and his heir because of his jealous fantasies. King Leontes suppose to investigate his suspicions first before he put his wife in prison and disregarded his own daughter.

As for Othello, the other theme that has been brought by Shakespeare is the danger of isolation. From the beginning of the play, Othello has been isolated from the community. He has been regard as the moor because he is different from them. Brabantio has objected Othello’s marriage with Desdemona because Othello is different from them in term of race and skin color. This proved that, Othello himself is visibly isolated from the other characters by his physical stature and the color of his skin. Iago is taking advantage of the situation by influence all the characters to believe with their own obsession. Most of the characters are isolated from each other. They rarely communicate with each other in the play. We can see that in the play, they rarely share their feeling or express their thought. The danger of this isolation has leads to the deaths of Othello, Iago, Roderigo and even Emilia.

In conclusion, Shakespeare has brought different themes in his play. Othello and The Winter’s tale has shared a similar theme, which is love. He portrayed love in different forms in his play. Shakespeare tries to put forward the meaning of true love that should be based on trust towards each other. In marriage, we should not doubt our spouse if we do not have valid proof of their infidelity. If humans are being control by their emotions and feelings, they cannot think wisely and it can cause disastrous to them in the end. Therefore, even though Shakespearean’s era is already passed, but the values of the works are still relevance to us, nowadays.

REFERENCES:
Shakespeare, W. (1993). Othello. United States of America: Washington Square Press.
Sparksnotes. (2010). Othello. Retrieved January 30, 2011, from http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/othello/.rhtml

Shakespeare, W. (1963). The winter’s tale. London: Methuen & Co Ltd.
Sparksnotes. (2010). The Winter’s tale. Retrieved February 11, 2011, from http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/thewinterstale/.rhtml

This Is A Serious Business

Hai guys, remember that we have told you that we will perform Othello on stage by this end of this semester? Well things are getting serious now. For this play, our group is collaborating with another group from the Elizabethan Literature course to perform the scenes of Act 1 in Othello. This is a good news actually because since Shake It Shakespeare is a small group of girls, we think this combination is great. So now, there are eight of us and each of us has been assign with one character in Othello. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you the cast members of Othello's Act One;

Aini Hanani

as

Shermeeta Kaur

as

Nadzirah Hakim

as

Nazirah 

as

in collaboration with..

The Talktalk-Literature team members;

Munirah Ruslan

as

Uzir 

as

 Ezal Izham

as

and last but not least

Ahmad Ikram

as

.

Yes...Ikram will play as Iago too. He will play Iago for half of the act and another half will be play by Munirah Ruslan.

Good luck to Us!- x

What she say...

Yeah, exactly.. this is not a monkey business.

We are performing a play on Othello, and we are going to rock it!!!

As you can see from the pictures above uploaded by our absolutely stunning Shake It Shakespeare's, web designer; Nadzirah Hakim, these are all our casts in the Othello play.

There will be 8 of us in Act 1 which are Uzir Edwin, Shermeeta, Nadzirah Hakim, Nazirah, Nurul Aini Hanani, Munirah Ruslan, Eizal,and also Ikram.Eizal is a minor student in Acting & Drama; and is also our group leader. we had always looked up on him as he is such a dedicated and good leader for all of us who are immature and has absolutely no knowledge about acting...

We had been going through some ups and downs regarding this play.. well, i suppose now we had already settled everything.

We had divided our lines for Act 1 play, and also sent a copy to Dr. Nurul by email.

Therefore this weekend, we will work on sound projections and also remember our lines for the play.

Dr. Nurul had offered herself to check on our pronunciation skills as it a script written in the Elizabethan era..

Dr. Nurul had put a lot of hopes in us and it all again comes back to our dedication to make this play a memorable one...

According to our lecturer, the  final practice will be on 4th April and the play will take place on 6th April 2011 at Pelenggang Cahaya, Art School, USM.

Other information will be informed to all of you out there in the updates in this blog.

so, always check out our blog ;)

-miti

School Of Art Open Day

The cheerful faces of our classmates ^_^

Play Reciting by Group 2

Practice! practice! practice!

Group 5

An Essay: A critique on jealousy

Between the three plays I have studied, the two plays which I am most amazed by are Othello and Winter’s Tale and the theme which had made the strongest impression on me is jealousy. There are also other themes in the plays such as forgiveness, youth and age, race and gender but if the other themes are the co-star then jealousy is the main star. Without the main actor a play cannot develop and without this theme, the play has no conflict. Since jealousy is the most evident theme in both plays, I will compare both plays to see how jealousy as the main actor developed the plays.

            Quoting FranÁois de la Rochefoucauld, “In jealousy there is more of self-love than love” which I think mean the jealous person is more concern about them self than their lover. Based on my meager experience in love, I think to love is to be able to put others before our self and the person’s happiness become our happiness. In addition, William Shakespeare also said, “And oft, my jealousy shapes faults that are not”, which means the jealous person could not see the truth anymore and started believing the lies. I believe the greatest fear a lover do not want to face and dread is the betrayal from their loved one. Thus, when they are jealous they tend to see any particular actions from their lover as suspicious and began to assume the worst. In a way, jealousy can be seen as a poison and once it started to creep into the mind the relationship is in danger.

            In order to show the importance of this theme, I will analyze how the jealousy play the part to poison and affect everyone in the plays. In both plays, at first we were displayed the strength of love between lovers and families. In the play Othello, Othello and Desdemona were faced with a challenge to separate them when Brabantio disapproved of their marriage and accused Othello for bewitching Desdemona with black magic. Here, we saw the strong feeling of love and trust between Othello and Desdemona especially when Othello asked her to come to the trial and speak for herself. It was the evidence that Othello was confident of the bond between them and know she will chose him. Then, we heard about their love story which started from Desdemona compassion and also Desdemona’s speech where she chose Othello over her father. Similarly, in Winter’s Tale, we were also displayed with a picture of a happy royal family which was receiving a visit from a very good friend. King Leontes and Polixenes had been good friend since  a boy and that friendship was strengthen until they were older with long visits and frequent meetings with each others. Since, their relationship was so close, it was easy to assume each other family members as their own and thus, Polixenes was very familiar with Queen Hermione. From my point of view, Shakespeare deliberately painted for us a picture of a happy family and great love story as the introduction to emphasize the impact of what jealousy can do to destroy the happy picture.

              Although jealousy comes from within ourselves, there are many ways the seed of jealousy can be planted in our mind. For example, in Othello, Iago was the one who planted the seed in Othello’s mind by suggesting that Cassio is very close to Desdemona. At first, Othello’s love was strong so he denied it but then seeing how eagerly Desdemona ask him to restore Cassio’s position he started to see the kind act as suspicious. This slight suspicion gives way for jealousy to spread its poison and corrupted the sacred trust between Othello and Desdemona. Love is a powerful force yet it is unseen and although we can display our love by hugging and caring it does not show the real love. Therefore, trust is important in relationship where you have to trust your lover no matter what happen. Othello started to mistrust Desdemona when Iago told his baseless suspicion and use the missing handkerchief as the prove of Desdemona disloyalty. If Othello’s love is as great as he claim he will not fall into jealousy only because Desdemona carelessness for dropping the handkerchief. On the other hand, King Leontes planted the seed of jealousy himself and was triggered when Queen Hermione was able to persuade King Polixenes to stay. I am quite surprised when Leontes instantly felt jealous during the play’s introduction so I suspected that he must have been keeping the jealousy inside for quite awhile and was just observing the interaction between his wife and friend to find evidence of their affair. The jealousy must have been pestering inside his mind for a long time which made him see red in every single action. If Leontes was in right mind he must have concluded that Hermione was able to convince Polixenes because she was a better persuader that himself and let the matter pass. Despite faced with jealousy, both plays ended differently.

In Othello, to make the play as a tragedy, Desdemona was killed by Othello and at the ending Othello took his own life out of regret. There was no happy ending for the newlyweds and they died without fully love one another. Although they both died at least I know their great love still remain for Desdemona still loves Othello until the last moment, and Othello died because of his regret for killing his wife. In Winter’s Tale the play have developed into more conflict due to the jealousy. Blended by jealousy, Leontes felt betrayed by Hermione and Polixines and ordered Camillo to kill his best friend with poison. When Polixenes ran away, he decided to put the blame on Hermione and accused the innocent Queen to be disloyal and put her in prison despite her heavy pregnancy. He even cruelly cast his daughter away and refused to believe the prophecy. That is how dangerous and lethal jealousy can be poisoning one’s trust and clouding his judgment. I see Leontes as a pathetic person who made blind judgments and hurt his loved one to satisfy his ego. As the result of this raving jealousy, Leontes lost everything dear to him. Although it seems like a tragedy, the play did not end badly because after 16 years Leontes was reunited with his daughter, wife, best friend, Camillo and gain a son in law. In contrast with Othello who lost everything even his life, fate was kinder to Leontes.

As the conclusion, I can see the clear affect jealousy bring to stable relationships.  Quoting another person, Robert A. Heinlein, “ A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity”. If both Othello and King Leontes were excellent and wise leaders they will trust their loved one and would not entertain jealousy. The play successfully proved that love cannot be assume as strong enough until it was tested with jealousy.

Works Cited

Finest Quotes. Jealousy Quotes. Retrieved Feb 9, 2011, from

http://www.finestquotes.com/select_quote-category-Jealousy-page-0.htm

Maurer K.(2000). Cliffs Complete Shakespeare’s Othello. USA: IDG Books Worldwide Inc.

Shakespeare W.(2007). The Winter’s Tale. New York: The Royal Shakespeare Company.

Reciting Play

Not enough with the play we studied in the class, we are now reciting it in Pelenggang Cahaya, located in Art School, USM. It was a great experience for us Literature students as this is the first time we are actually doing something LIVE outside of the classroom. we were all nervous to recite our parts in the play, however everything turned up well. and as usual, our beloved Dr. Nurul were always there to give us moral support, and thanks a lot to Dr. Asri for guiding us on how to project our voice, work on our intonations, as well as our body language :)
We also had audiences from secondary schools who came to check the activities takes place in university; precisely in Art School.
Here are some of the glimpse of our play reciting in public....