Othello Tragedy Essay

The story of Othello is a traditional tragedy with a main character, whose tragic flaw lead’s us to his death. In Othello, it teaches us life lessons to avoid these tragedies. As the play develops, the situations worsen, and we are shown a story of a powerful man who falls from grace. Othello’s tragic flaws lie with his irritable character traits. Throughout the play, we get a sense of these traits in full mode. His most irritable trait is his pride. By being overly prideful, Othello often jumps to conclusions and reacts fast, when trouble comes his way, rather than resolving or medaling into these problems first. Othello speaks in his soliloquy saying that he would “rather be a toad And live upon the vapor of a dungeon Than keep a corner in the thing I love For other uses.”(page 54, line 270-273), which show’s us that without proof, he is already doubting Desdemona and the love that they have shared. If Othello, would have overcome his pride at this moment in time and simply asked Desdemona to explain, this problem could have easily been resolved. This teaches reader’s a lesson that too much pride can also cause destruction and that with communication problem’s can generally be fixed. In a standard story, us as reader’s want a story to end on a positive note, and go from bad to good, or at least worse to better. In Othello, like all other tragedies’, the story from beginning to end, does the complete opposite. Rather than Iago’s truth prevailing instead his lies become more prominent and Othello’s jealousy grows stronger. Iago blatantly lies when he says “I know that; but such a handkerchief – I am sure it was your wife’s- did I to-day See Cassio wipe his beard with?” (pg.57, line 438-439). Othello gets pushed so far that he tells Iago, “Get me some poison, Iago, this night” (pg.67, line 207), which is the planning of his death for Desdemona. We see Othello start to lose his power and strong stance as an important figure, throughout the play.