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....

Assignment - The Winter's Tale

The production of William Shakespeare are usually not written or printed out in those days in order to prevent plagiarism. One of his great works captured in text was The Winter’s Tale. According to research, the play was written before 15th May 1611. Shakespeare has read widely on Pandosto’s work especially the vocabulary used before producing The Winter’s Tale. Some has thought that The Winter’s Tale is a poor play, however not for Shakespeare. “This play can be called a romantic tragic-comedy, but it has a strong element of realism in plot, incident, character, and language; perhaps stronger than any other plays” (Pafford, J.H. 1971).

The Winter’s Tale is about the friendship of two kings which later broken apart when the wife got accused for infidelity with the king’s friend. This created grief in the queen’s son which then died and the queen’s daughter was sent away by the king to be murdered. However, when the daughter grew up, she falls in love with the enemy’s son and their love had finally melted the hearts of their old folks. The unity at the end became more interesting as the queen who turned into stone earlier has taken her human character later.” The Winter’s Tale becomes a perfect example of Shakespeare’s ‘symbolic technique’ as the characters, incidents, patterns, settings, and phraseology are equally striking in showing relationship in the play” (Pafford, J.H. 1971). The themes arise are mostly revolves around the characters and the situations they get involve in throughout the play.

One of the prominent themes in The Winter’s Tale is jealousy. The deadly jealousy Leontes had over his wife; Hermione and his best friend; Polixenes had taken his son’s life; Mammilius. Leontes and Polixenes had been best friends for years and when Polixenes came to visit Leontes in Sicilia, Leontes started having doubts in the relationship between Hermione and Polixenes. He accused Hermione that the child she was carrying in her womb belongs to Polixenes. The intimacy he saw between them, made him to set up a trap to kill Polixenes. However, just on time, Polixenes was informed by Camillo of Leontes plans and he left Sicilia. Unfortunately, the innocent Hermione who was accused of being infidel was heartbroken and reported by Paulina later that the she had died. All these false accusation on Hermione was then heard by Mammilius and he started falling ill and died of grief. Leontes had also ordered Lord Antigonous; husband to Paulina to take away and kill the newborn child which he believed to be of Polixenes and Hermione. All these jealousy had left Leontes all alone for the next 16 years in his kingdom without a wife, daughter, son and also friend.

Another major theme found in The Winter’s Tale is forgiveness. There are few characters that portray this element such as Polixenes, Hermione, Perdita and so on. The actions of Leontes to kill Polixenes and accused Hermione for the act she did not commit in the end had destroyed him. At the end of the play, the evil minded Leontes asked for forgiveness from Polixenes for setting up trap to kill him due to jealousy. Apart from that, Leontes also asked for forgiveness from his beloved wife, Hermione for accusing her having an affair with Polixenes. The greatness of these characters is reflected in their actions to openly forgive Leontes’s mistreatments towards them. Hermione is indeed a model of passive virtue and forgiveness. She then who was a statue, turned alive when Leontes asked Paulina for Hermione to forgive him. She has a lot of endurance and strength towards the false accusation of her husband. She merely acts as an obedient wife and did not talk against Leontes’s commands. Hermione has always been loyal to her husband until the end of the play (www.gradesaver.com). On the other hand, Polixenes who had been Leontes’s childhood friend, despite been targeted for assassination by Leontes, he agreed to forgive Leontes’s mistreatment towards him. Polixenes’s forgiveness is reflected by his actions to allow his son; Florizel to marry Perdita; Leontes’s daughter at the end of the play (www.gradesaver.com) and not wanting to take revenge over what Leontes did 16 years ago.

The theme of time is also another significant element found in The Winter’s Tale. As we know, this is the longest time span set for a play; 16 years. Shakespeare had made the story to sound interesting by saying Polixenes stayed in Sicilia for 9 months which triggers reader’s mind when Hermione was accused to have Polixenes child in her womb. Apart from that, time was still for Leontes; even though 16 years had passed in the play, everything around him was unchanged. The act when Polixenes and Camillo came into Leontes’s castle, had made Leontes’s mind reverse 16 years back in time and remembered the time he had with his best childhood friend (www.shmoop.com). Sicilia’s castle was the witness for all the actions that took place in the past and present. The character who suffered the most was Leontes; “his grief over his destruction of his family prevents him being able to move forward with his life – although sixteen years pass before he has finally reunited with his family, Leontes's lives as though he was frozen in time” (www.shmoop.com).

Restoration and reunion is another crucial theme arises in The Winter’s Tale. Camillo is one important character that helped the old kings to reunite after 16 years when he noticed that Perdita and Florizel are in love with each other. He is a resolute man of action: he works to resolve the chaos and plans and achieves the re-uniting in Sicilia. He is an agent of reconciliation (Pafford, J.H., 1971: 1xxvi). And most interesting, Camillo was then reunited with Paulina after 16 years. Paulina was joyful and Camillo has acquired a wife beyond price. Camillo had reunited the kings and the lovers with each other, whereas Paulina on the other hand had reunited Leontes with Hermione; by restoring the queen with her magic power and Hermione with her long lost daughter; Perdita who was accused to belong to Polixenes. Thus, after 16 years of conflict, fury, jealousy and suffering all the characters were reunited and the play leads to a happy ending.

In conclusion, The Winter’s Tale uses a structure of themes that occurs throughout the play. Along with plot, character, setting and style, theme is considered as one of the fundamental components of fiction (en.wikipedia.org). Leontes’s jealousy had created a chaos in the play, which then made almost all the characters broken apart. However, with restoration and reunion of family and friends made the play ended in a happy mood. The Winter’s Tale is the longest play stated in Shakespeare’s work; the 16 years gap before all the characters were reunited is a long period of time. There are other themes too that are interrelated to each other such as youth and age, friendship, marriage, season and so on and so forth. Therefore, the themes used in The Winter’s Tale helps to get the message across about human life and nature by exploring timeless and universal ideas in general.

The Themes of Othello

Written by Nadzirah Hakim bt Md Yussof


           The play Othello is one of the works written by William Shakespeare. It is written approximately in 1603 and was published in 1622, whereas the first performance of this play is in November 1604 (Wikipedia, Chronology of Shakespeare’s play). The main themes of Othello revolve around the issue of love, jealousy, fidelity and also pride. But as the play unwraps, much more issues come to visible and these will be discuss in details throughout this essay.

            The first theme that can be found in this play is jealousy. This theme can be said act as the backbone of the entire play. All the events that happen in the play until that leads to Othello’s downfall are actually triggered by this form of mischief- jealousy. In this play, jealousy portrays by three characters which are Iago, Roderigo and Othello. Iago’s jealousy originates from his dissatisfaction towards Othello who happens to promote the lieutenant post to Michael Cassio, the less experience soldier, instead of him (line 8-22). This then drives Iago to plan revenge on Othello in order to gain back his reputation. Iago’s jealousy is actually the most critical issue in this play. Things would goes differently if Iago has respond in positive way about the promotion and Othello and Desdemona would have live happily with their marriage.   

In Roderigo’s case however, his jealousy is derives from his disappointment of watching Desdemona (his first love) falls into Othello’s hands. In comparison to Iago, Roderigo’s jealousy basically is harmless because looking back at Roderigo’s ability, he is incapable to plan or even to perform evil tricks on his own. His jealousy is mostly fuels up by Iago who uses him as a pawn in order to play his evil tricks. For instance, in Act II, Iago purposely provokes Roderigo by telling him about Cassio’s feeling towards Desdemona so Roderigo will take action and create a trouble that he knows will put Cassio’s reputation at risk.

Still, Roderigo is not the only person who is affected by Iago’s jealousy. Jealousy is like a disease that will spread from one person to another which if not prevent can cause destruction to all. This is exactly what happens in this play. Iago’s hatred and jealousy towards Othello drives him to deceive many people around him including Othello. As part of his evil plans, Iago cunningly uses both Roderigo and Othello’s weakness which is Desdemona to entrap them in his wicked schemes. The story he makes up to Othello about Desdemona and Cassio results to another form of jealousy in the play which at the end leads to the death of Desdemona and finally Othello himself. These events show that Iago’s character plays as the main contributor to the theme jealousy.

Besides jealousy, the second theme of this play is reputation which also relates to pride. This play has abundance of characters that progress alongside the theme reputation. This includes Othello, Brabantio, Cassio and last but not least Iago. All of these characters depicts their reputation is as important as their pride through the way they reacts towards the situations that comes up to them. For examples, in the first act we have been introduce to Brabantio who much worries that his daughter’s elopement will mark him as a careless father despite his rank as a senator (191-197), while Othello on the other hand becomes depress after suspecting he has been cheating by his wife. The more obvious event that conveys the importance of reputation as one’s pride can be found in act II. In this scene, Cassio is at dismay after losing his rank as a lieutenant (253-256). For Cassio, his reputation is what makes him feels better about himself because it let people see him in positive ways.

But, above all the three characters, Iago relatedness with reputation is much stronger than the others. His jealousy, hatred, betrayal and the dark mischievous he creates are all arouses from the idea of reputation. In fact, as part of his revenge’s scheme, Iago trickily plays with words and actions to cover up his real intentions in order to gain and maintain his reputation in people’s eyes. Iago’s action conveys to us that reputation means a lot to him and he is willing to do anything to gain it. From these situations, it suggests that the theme reputation is importance in both domestic and political level.

 The third important theme in this play is fidelity. In analysing this theme, it is crucial to understand the underlying keys of ‘what it is’ and ‘what is perceived to be’ (Maurer, K. 2000) because this is what actually the play Othello is all about.  In Othello, fidelity can be analyse between husband-wife, father-daughter, friends and general-servants relationship. For example, in Desdemona’s case, although she is wrong by turning away from his father and elope with Othello, but she is the most faithful character of all. Desdemona’s love towards Othello is real but if only Othello has faith in her, she would not have become the innocent victim of Iago’s evil tricks.

Fidelity would not be complete without thrust and vice versa. Lacks of one of these elements will not promise a strong relationship. This for instance relates to Cassio-Othello-Iago of general-servants relationship. In scene II, Othello thrusts Iago more than Cassio, while as a matter of fact, Iago (the Janus faces) only pretends to be loyal to him. Although Cassio is the truly faithful servant to Othello yet Othello shows that he lacks of faith in Cassio when he easily thrust Iago’s words and unprofessionally removes Cassio from his Lieutenant rank without further investigation. It is indeed an irony that someone with military skill like Othello fails to differentiate between the real enemy and friend. His careless at the end brings about to his own destruction.

Other theme that can be found in this play is woman status. In this play, the woman status is represent by two characters which is Desdemona and Emilia where both is similar in the way they are married. In Othello, women has lower status and always powerless than man. What is worse, the unmarried woman is often regards as a property to her father. This actually proves in Act I where Iago and Brabantio indicates Desdemona as if she is one of the properties “Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!”  (80- Act I scene I) and “she is abused, stol’n from me and corrupted (60- Act 1 scene III). Besides, men’s thought of woman is always weak and powerless can also be trace in this play. During the hearing at the court, it is Othello who voices up to call upon Desdemona and let her speak on her behalf. Desdemona proves that men are wrong and she actually is braver and confidence in voicing up her thought even though the truth will hurt her father. 

Like any others of Shakespeare’s works, the themes in Othello is equally revolves around the issues of human life. Besides love, jealousy, and pride are the common themes that can be found in his work. In conclusion, in Othello, jealousy is the main theme that is proves to be very harmful and can leads to destruction in one’s life. It is almost as disastrous as men greediness in gaining reputation. Men willing to do anything to secure their reputation but it still do not promise them that they will get it in the end. What is best is to always be grateful in what one has. The third theme is fidelity which is important in a relationship either between husband and wife, father and daughter, friends or servant and his master. Last but not least, woman has very low status in society compare to men. Their powerless state makes them the easy target to be use by men and easily been discriminate as unchaste which explain why Othello and Iago could be so suspicious with their wife.

References:

Maurer, K. 2000. Cliffs Complete: Shakespeare’s Othello. United States Of America: IDG Books WorldWide, Inc.

Shakespeare, W. 1993. Othello. New York: Washington Square Press.

Forgive me, but just let me ramble (a bit) ^0^

I guess my friends slash authors slash group members had posted everything related to the 3 plays we had done with Dr Nurul that I can't think of anything to add on so, I think I should just ramble a bit about the plays I have learn ( bear with me).

First is the tragic story of Othello. I enjoyed this play very much and make me ponder about the danger and the cruelty of jealousy. Yes, jealousy is a very powerful theme in this play and the most lethal poison ever found. I can't bear to see how scary and pathetic Othello had changed because of baseless jealousy. I screamed (in my mind) NO!NO!NO! when I saw Othello went into his epilepsy. I cannot believe how a fearless leader stoop down so low to be a murderer.

Second, is the Winter's Tale which is a comedy even though there are some sad scene in it. King Leontes was poisoned by jealousy he planted himself which blurred his judgment.  as the result, he lost his Queen, son, daughter, his best friend, his trusted minister and also lived in guilt and sadness. Although he was reunited with them except his son, it showed how dangerous jealousy is. The love between family and friends which I though to be strong were easily broken by jealousy. Jealousy tainted the trust between loved one and without trust it was easy to be swayed by irrational thinking.

The last play is Dr Faustus, where I witness what irrational desire  and thirst for power can bring a man down. Dr Faustus was a renown scholar at first but he became lost in his desire which clouded his judgment. What amused me is that, although Dr Faustus is supposedly a wise scholar, he is naive to trust the devil's promise. The devil, no matter how reserve it look is still a devil and it is the devil's duty to twist people around. So, Dr Faustus, really trust the deceiving devil with his soul. Whenever, Dr Faustus is unsure about his decision, the devil will tempted him with the beautiful goddess. It seemed that the goddess role in the play is the easiest because she didn't has any dialogue. She only came to tempt Dr Faustus and the other action was when she evilly laughed at the end. Maybe the only requirement to act as the goddess is to be beautiful and can laugh an evil laugh...LOL.

My conclusion, I enjoyed learning and watching all the plays. Thank you Dr Nurul for making me a fan of old plays.