Othello’s Diversity of Imagery Essay -- Othello essays

Othellos potpourri of tomography The diverse imaging found in Shakespe ars playing period Othello represents a world all by itself. And this world of imagery contributes to the preponderant sentiment of pain and suffering and unpleasantness. There is no shortage of imagery in the play this is for certain. Critic Caroline Spurgeon in Shakespeares Imagery and What it Tells Us sorts through with(predicate) the plethora of imagery in the play The main(prenominal) image in Othello is that of animals in action, preying upon one another, mischievous, lascivious, cruel or suffering, and through these, the general sense of pain and unpleasantness is much increased and kept incessantly before us. More than half the animal images in the play are Iagos, and all these are contemptuous or repellent a disgust of flies, a quarrelsome dog, the recurrent image of bird-snaring, leading asses by the nose, a spider catching a fly, beating an offenceless dog, wild cats, wolves, goats and mon keys. To these Othello adds his pictures of suffocate toads breeding in a cistern, summer flies in the shambles, the ill-boding down over the infected house, a toad in a dungeon, the fiend too hideous to be shown, bird-snaring again, aspics tongues, crocodiles tears, and his reiteration of goats and monkeys. In addition, . . . . (79) The plays imagery is oftentimes reflective of the fortunes of the protagonist. As the Moors view declines, the quality of the imagery in the play declines. In The Riverside Shakespeare andiron Kermode explains the relationship between imagery and Othellos jealousy It is very great to see that Othellos self-estimate one not easily jealious, but, being wrought, / vex in the extreme (V.ii.345-... ...rizona Quarterly (Spring 1956), pp.5-16. Kermode, Frank. Othello, the Moor of Venice. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston, MA Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedi es. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Muir, Kenneth. Introduction. William Shakespeare Othello. New York Penguin Books, 1968. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The electric car Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Spurgeon, Caroline. Shakespeares Imagery and What it Tells Us. Shakespearean Tragedy. Ed. D. F. Bratchell. New York Routledge, 1990. Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Canada University of Toronto Press, 1957.