"Othello" by William Shakespeare

In the tragedy Othello, William Shakespeare portrays the sinister aspects of human nature to encourage the audience to view the characters in comparison to themselves, coming to a realisation that as human beings we all inflict more vulnerability on others than we would like to admit. During the drama the audience finds itself thoroughly immersed in concepts and the consequences of human nature, conceptions such as the emotional attitudes of racism, sexism, love, hate, jealously, pride, and deception. The Shakespearean tragedy of Othello was written in a time of great racial tensions in England. According to Eldred Jones, in 1600 just three years before Othello was written, Queen Elizabeth proclaimed an Edict for the Transportation of all "negars and blackmoores" out of the country ("Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays 39 ). It was in this atmosphere that Shakespeare began the masterpiece of Othello, a drama about a noble black Moorish general, Othello, who falls in love with and marries, Desdemona, a young white daughter of a senator. Othello's colour inevitably causes vulnerability, conflict and isolation from the rest of the Venetian society. …