Exploring the Destructive Nature of Marriage in Shakespeare's Othello

This essay examines the institution of marriage as portrayed in William Shakespeare's *Othello*, arguing that the play presents marriage as a potentially dangerous and fatal concept. The essay focuses on the relationships between Othello and Desdemona, and Iago and Emilia, highlighting the importance of trust, loyalty, and obedience within these unions. It explores how societal expectations and power dynamics, particularly the lack of voice for women, contribute to the breakdown of these marriages. The analysis delves into themes of jealousy, betrayal, and the destructive impact of manipulation, particularly as orchestrated by Iago. The essay emphasizes how the absence of trust and honesty ultimately leads to the tragic outcomes of the play, demonstrating Shakespeare's exploration of anxieties surrounding gender, race, and the fragility of marital bonds. The essay also references scholarly sources to support its claims, providing a comprehensive analysis of the play's complex themes.

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English essay
3/29/2020

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Discuss the institution of marriage in Othello.
There is the one play Othello of William Shakespeare in which he represented the marriage as
the dangerous and the fatal concept. In general terms, Marriage is a positive concept as marriages
are based on love. In the play, there were the three characters which are Desdemona’s, Lago and
Othello whose love is based on trust (Ghanim, 2015). The bride of marriage in Othello is
expected to have basic things like trust, loyalty, and obedience. At present, the brides in the
women have no voice as they were rules earlier by their father and now with their husbands.
As per the play, Othello is married to Desdemona and Emilia is married to Lago. In both
marriages, there were some common things and some are different. The view of Emilia as per the
marriage is disillusioned as the female characters in Othello are powerless and they are just the
food for their men (Kumarang and Pujiyanti, 2017).
The institution of marriage in Othello is doomed where women are viewed as being disloyal and
promiscuous. The marriages in Othello are pretty bleak as per Shakespeare’s. The play by
Shakespeare is begun with the conflict. The father of Desdemona sees that Othello is the kind of
theft that wants to take the personal property of his daughter. So there was the conflict between
the husband of Desdemona and her father. In the play, Shakespeare has portrayed that the wives
are unfairly accused and even murdered by their abusive husbands (Grady, Kyle. 2016).
Desdemona and Emilia are murdered by Othello and Lago which are their husbands.
Shakespeare has examined several anxieties in the marriage in the sixteenth century which is
about interracial coupling. Shakespeare has also explored the attitudes about gender and race by
evaluating the marriage of white women and black women.
In the play the love is questionable and which is measured through the level of trust. The
message which Shakespeare is telling through the play is not about love but is about the trust
between the two people which only makes the marriages successful (Fiorato, 2015). If the trust
between the two people is broken then the marriages have come to the end.
At the beginning of the marriage, Othello and Desdemona have eternal love with trust and
honesty but the downfall in the marriage cam when Lago came in their life. Othello is the strong
man as he is the soldier so he comes from the experience of the battlefield. Othello is the trusting

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man as well as an honest persona also. He married at a young age with the beautiful girl
Desdemona (Johanyak, 2019). Othello was the black man of another race and another color from
the Desdemona. Desdemona loves Othello very much and she also trusts him blindly. Her father
was against the marriage as they both belong to a different color and race but she disobeyed her
father and took the side of her love and shows the trust in love.
Shakespeare has written this story for not romance but it is the story of the marriage in which the
wife of Othello which is Desdemona has compassion and the deep love for her husband. Before
the marriage, Othello used to tell his stories of military and wars to Desdemona and she fell in
love with that (Kottman, 2017). They were deeply in love with each there so they married. But
Lago has sabotaged their love by convincing the Othello that her wife was cuckolding him.
Othello beliefs in the lies made by the Lago and this were indicating that she has lost the trust in
her wife. Othello decided to kill her wife because he was thinking that he deceives her father for
just marrying him (Ward, 2015). The trust has been lost by Othello and he has decided to kill her
wife. Desdemona on the other side loves Othello hardly and she never breaks her trust as she has
fought against her father for her love which is showing how much she loves Othello.
So as per the character of Othello, Shakespeare tries to convince that if the person is right in the
marriage and if he loves, trust and show honesty for another person too, still there are the
chances that the marriages can be fall apart. Once the wrong conception of the one person and
the trust is broken in the marriage broke the loyalty. Trust and honesty once broken can lead to
the disasters in the marriage (Masule, 2014). The jealousy has come between the relationship and
it broke apart the strong marriage of Othello’s mad Desdemona.
The characters of Lago and Emilia are different from Othello's marriages. Othello lover her wife
in the starting and he has also trusted her before the jealousy made by Lago. But in the character
of Lago and Emilia, Emilia lover her husband Lago but Lago never loves her wife Emilia and he
was dishonest to him and has some evil plans in his mind from the start (Tóth, 2019).
Lago has used her wife Emilia to get the handkerchief for him and she was not aware of the
purpose. But as Lago was jealous of Othello for his success he made the evil plan (TOKER,
2014). In both the characters of Lago and Othello, the trust was not there and they have killed
their wives. So it is concluded that the institution of marriage in Othello is doomed where

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women are viewed as being disloyal and promiscuous and marriages get broken due to the lack
of trust and honesty.

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References
Fiorato, S. (2015). Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s
Othello. Pólemos, 9(1), 61-82.
Ghanim, Fawziya Mousa. "The Murder Scene in Shakespeare's Othello and Yousif Al-Saygh's
Desdemona." Al-Ma'mon College Journal 25 (2015): 368-380.
Grady, Kyle. "Othello, Colin Powell, and Post-Racial Anachronisms." Shakespeare
Quarterly 67.1 (2016): 68-83.
Johanyak, Debra. "Shifting Religious Identities and Sharia in Othello." Religions 10.10 (2019):
587.
Kottman, Paul. "On Othello and Desdemona." Memoria di Shakespeare. A Journal of
Shakespearean Studies 4 (2017).
Kumarang, and Pujiyanti Umi. IAGO’S ETHNOCENTRISM ON SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO
THE MOOR OF VENICE. Diss. IAIN Surakarta, 2017.
Masule, Christopher M. A comparative analysis of the depiction of women in Sifiso Nyathi's God
of women and William Shakespeare's Othello. Diss. 2014.
TOKER, Alpaslan. "OTHELLO: ALIEN IN VENICE." Journal of Academic Studies 15.60
(2014).
Tóth, Zsolt. "Identities under Siege: a Comment on the Hungarian Attitude Towards Refugees
Informed by Shakespeare's Othello." (2019).
Ward, Megg. "A new tradition: understanding Othello through the performance of Emilia."
(2015).