Othello: Love and hatred

Othello: Love and hatred

Othello is a play that takes place in Venice, which tells how a soldier, Lago ruined a general in the Venetian army marriage and life. Othello, a black man, is married to a white woman, Desdemona, whose father is totally against their marriage. Desdemona’s father does not believe that the prominent general could flee with his daughter and get engaged without his consent. Love is a powerful force that controls the heart and pulls the mind and changes characters at the center of existence in Othello. While love seems to bring Othello to his wife Desdemona to break the constraints of race, it also drives Brabantio’s mind to blow away after he learns the secret union that his daughter runs into. Hatred, on the other hand, comes from within the mind mostly built by the insecurities of Lago and out of jealousy of his boss. Lago is overwhelmed with this internal force towards anyone who seems to do better than him. Love has been the cornerstone of how people behave and makes them go into places they never thought it would take them. As the play unfolds, love and hatred are the two driving forces that revolve around it and happens to exist in the characters, even without their consent, and ultimately takes them down a road they never thought they would take.

Love ignites the heart of Othello and makes him get attracted to a white woman, Desdemona. He is a powerful, black general in the Venetian army. His position does not deter him from falling in love with Desdemona, and he even declares it publicly. His love for Desdemona makes him fearless, even to Brabantio, Desdemona’s father. He narrates to Lago how his military position and love for her will provide leverage against Brabantio’s fury. Upon meeting with Desdemona’s father, Othello declares to him that he truly loves Desdemona and that he never used any kind of trickery to marry her (Shakespeare 5). Brabantio would have never accepted his pleas and request as he believed Othello must have enchanted his daughter, but he is astonished after she appears and honestly confirms that they are both in love. Desdemona’s love for her husband is true when she takes her stand before her father and stating that he also did the same to marry her mother. This makes her father give in to her bravery and boldness, despite being controlling and dictatorial. Desdemona had the choice of marrying so many other men, but for the love of Othello defies the lines of race and open criticism. As Othello says, it is Desdemona who pursued him after falling for his stories valor. She is not submissive and passive but rather quite bold and tenacious in the face of criticism.

Brabantio loved his daughter so much that he would not let her go. When Roderigo and Lago warn him that her daughter is getting married, Brabantio is upset and does not believe it. Immediately, he searches for her in the room, but in vain and then declares that Othello charmed her into it. Later on, he confronts Othello and accuses him of theft and witchcraft. As he learns more about Othello, his fury fades away. The love for her daughter made Brabantio sick when he learns that her daughter will be gone. He does not believe the words that Roderigo and Lago say out of overwhelming fatherly love for his daughter. He even orders the guards to arrest the Moor for theft. He could not believe that Othello was a suitable suitor to Desdemona. Unknowingly, he is driven by an immense love for his daughter.

Lago often falsely professes love in friendship towards Roderigo and Cassio. For him, love is the leverage that he uses to affect his ill motives. Cassio believes that he is a true friend to Lago, oblivious of his inner manipulative intentions. He learns of his betrayal when it was too late. Desdemona’s love in friendship for Cassio is real but is misinterpreted for adulterous love by Othello. She was just a friend to him out of love, but this spiked the suspicions that Othello had towards their interaction. True friendship of Emilia towards Desdemona was evident when she took a stand as a witness against her husband’s deeds for the love of her dead mistress (Vanita 347). She gets killed for revealing her husband’s evil actions.

Lago is filled with jealousy and hatred. First, he is jealous of Cassio being appointed as lieutenant over him. This spurs hatred in him from the beginning. His hatred is out of proportion as he seems determined to destroy Othello’s life out of Cassio’s appointment. He is also jealous that Othello may have slept with his wife: “It is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets. “He has done my office” (Shakespeare, 370). He is ready to take revenge on anyone at the slightest provocation. This kind of hatred is overrated as his ill intentions are not clearly defined. His hatred drives him to murder his wife, which can be attributed to his general hatred of women that he never expressed openly. He enjoys it when he makes Othello’s life miserable by ruining his marital happiness.

Othello remains loyal and loving to his wife Desdemona until his insecurities outweigh his love and turn his back on Desdemona after he is fed with lies by Lago. Lago poisons his marital life soon as he is told of his wife’s alleged affair with Cassio. Othello fails to see through Lago’s advances to see his character as a venomous snake (Wangh 206). Othello’s love is handicapped when his vision is obstructed by Lago, and he lays hands on Desdemona, the love of his life. His hatred for his wife becomes as strong as his original love for her and decides to kill her. He commits the murder of his wife with his own hands but realizes when it is too late that Lago was malicious all through.

In conclusion, love and hatred switches among the characters in the play. These forces control Lago’s actions from the onset of the narrative, Othello is carried away by love first then overwhelmed by hatred later. Love made Brabantio fear for his daughter so much, while Emilia, Lago’s wife to shout out his sinful acts, which in turn ignites deadly hatred in Lago, and eventually, he kills her. The love people have always made them oblivious of their actions up to date. The equal reaction, hatred, also takes over people’s motives in the current days, similar to Lago’s actions.