Othello and Different Senses of Abnormal :: Othello essays

Othello and Different Senses of Abnormal As inconsequential as they may initially seem, the various types of anomalousities in William Shakespeares tragic gambling Othello do impact upon the audience. Let us explore this subject of the deviate in this play. In the essay Wit and Witchcraft an Approach to Othello Robert B. Heilman discusses the abnormal situation and plans of the ancient as manifested in his verbal imagery If we bring all the lines of star character out of context and consider them as a unit, we have always a useful body of data but if, when we study Iagos lines, we find that he consistently describes himself in images of hunting and trapping, we learn not only his plans of action but something of his attitude to occasions, to his victims, and to himself and beyond that there is fixed for us an image of evil whizz of those by which the drama interprets the human situation. (331) And how about epilepsy? In Act 4 the evil Iago works up Othello into a frenz y regarding the missing kerchief. The issue illogical, senseless raving by the general is a prelude to an epileptic seizure or entranced state Lie with her? lie on her? We say lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her Zounds, thats fulsome. hankey scabions handkerchief To confess, and be hanged for his labor first to be hanged, and then to confess I tremble at it. . . . (4.1) Cassio enters right after the general has locomote into the epileptic trance. Iago explains to him IAGO. My lord is falln into an epilepsy. This is his second fit he had one yesterday. CASSIO. Rub him about the temples. IAGO. No, forbear. The lethargy must have his quiet course. If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs. Do you withdraw yourself a little while. He will recover straight. (4.1) Epilepsy on the part of the protagonist is unusual and physically abnormal. But the more stern abnormalities in the play are psychological. Iago is generally recognized as the one character possessing and operating by abnormal psychology. But Lily B. Campbell in Shakespeares Tragic Heroes tells of the time when the hero himself approached madness