In Othello, most characters can be boiled down to a couple of things; their positive (or neutral) human traits, and their fatal flaw. Cassio, the very image of the rakish young commander, falls prey to a kind of aloofness. Prior to the story, he skates through life on natural talent and (as we are often reminded) good looks, which allow Iago to portray him as the cool Don Lothario rather than the charming but otherwise innocuous man he really is. He is too blind to see the tricks being played on him which result in his rather unfortunate end. Othello himself is heroic in battle, noble to both men and women alike, generally well behaved, and ultimately just. His fatal flaw, as anyone familiar with the story would know, is that he's entirely too trusting. Shakespeare makes a clever reversal of the usual fatal flaw resolution in that Othello ultimately decides to not trust the one person (Desdemona) who would never lie to him, but his flaw remains as it is.
Iago is by far the most interesting character to read, so I saved him for last. In many ways he is nothing but a cartoon villain, scheming and plotting for power as an end, not as a means. There is one passage that makes me view him differently, however. Sure, Iago desires power and wealth, but he also seems to believe (or want us to believe) that Othello " 'twixt [his] sheets h'as done [his] office" (p 572, ln 377), of course meaning that he thinks or wants to believe that Othello had slept with his wife. To me, this either means that Iago feels the need to even deceive the audience, or he feels the need to convince himself that what he's doing is right. That kind of writing marks the beginning of the modern period which moved on from asking "How are we going to kill this monster?" to asking "Why are we going to kill this monster? What is a monster, anyway?"
1. How do you think writers and philosophers of this period would define a monster? Would they begin their thought with "a monster is something..." or "a monster is someone..."?
1. How do you think writers and philosophers of this period would define a monster? Would they begin their thought with "a monster is something..." or "a monster is someone..."?
I really like your question and found it tied in to what we have talked about in class. In the past classes we have defined monsters depending on the time period, for Beowulf a monster was a villain, someone who was ugly and large and caused destruction by violence for no reason. In Dr. Faustus a monster was the a tragic soul who wanted too much in life that he doomed himself. While in Shakespeare time I feel a monster is someone who is selfish like Iago, a man or women who truly believes other people can be pons in the game of life and that they can accomplish their goals in life through trickery. Iago is the main example of a monster in Othello by his ability to constantly harm others and backstab his peers without even seconding guessing him. However, the thing I feel that qualifies Iago the most as a monster is his lack of remorse for the destruction he is causing to people, he truly only wants the best for himself and does not care who gets harmed in the end, as long as it is not him of course. While a monster could be described using "a monster is something" or "a monster is someone" if you link this "monster" as being Othello "a monster is someone" fits best.
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