Jealousy In Othello Research Paper

The Effect of Jealousy on the Othello Cast
Jealous is a reoccurring theme in history and today. Jealousy can be helpful because it can prompt people to achieve greater feats, like Microsoft’s competition with Apple. Microsoft’s jealousy of the Ipad sparked their creation of the new tablet computer. In the late fifteenth century, western Europeans were jealous of the literature and technological advances of the Arabs. These jealous feelings potentially initiated the commencement of the Renaissance. This revived interest in writing and literature brought in authors like Shakespeare to write about common themes and verisimilitudes of the everyday renaissance life. This theme of jealousy can be expressed in the drama Othello written by William
Jealousy can lead to people doing destructive things, like killing one another. Its marks on Othello make him so crazy that he resorts to killing his wife, and then killing himself. “Ay, let her rot and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone (IV.1.178-180).” Othello has just seen his “proof” that Desdemona is unfaithful. He is too rash and starts making threats that cannot be undone, like killing his wife. His character is so quick to judge that he doesn’t even think about Desdemona’s character and how she would behave. He does not look deeper into the matter. Othello says this metaphor “my heart is turned to stone” expressing how quickly his character changed and how jealousy brings a toll to his life. In the next speech Othello reflects on his actions and tells Lodovico and Gratiano what he wants to be remembered by. “Then must you speak/Of one that loved not wisely, but too well./Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,/Perplexed in the extreme. Of one whose hand,/Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away/Richer than all his tribe (5.2.343-348)”. He admits that he was irrational and that his emotions were too strong. “loved not wisely, but too well”, he got carried away too quickly by being in love, and was not fully thinking properly. Once tricked into jealousy, he went berserk and threw away everything good in his life. Using the simile “Like the base Indian” him being a silly “savage” who wasn’t smart and “threw a pearl away” referring to killing Desdemona: a white, fair and rare woman. Reflecting on his actions with this simile and his new knowledge and realization of himself, he then kills himself. When one is tricked by jealousy, their actions are greatly altered leading them to kill loved ones and finally, leading to the self-destruction. Jealousy is a murderer that becomes a virus, killing everyone it