Sample Essay Othello – Fragility Of Trust

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Othello is a play that explores the fragility of trust.

Do you agree?

Shakespeare’s tragic play Othello utilises the virtue of trust quite ironically as it revolves around the consequences of misdirected trust between the characters. Elizabethan England was obsessed with notion of distinguishing an honest man with a ‘knave’. The depictions of trust in the individual, misplaced trust and trust in judgement convey how trust is made fragile when it becomes clouded by base emotions. As a result, the balance between reason, rationality and emotion is disrupted, instigating the tragedy that is Othello.

When rational judgement is obscured and corrupted by emotion, the virtue of trust is made fragile as conveyed through the demise of Othello. Trust in judgement is dictated by a balance of passion and rationality which Othello displays through the exposition of the Aristotelean tragedy. Academic Edward Said writes of the notion of the ‘other’, a stereotypical Western characterisation of oriental characters as untrustworthy, licentious and aggressive which, Othello seems to subvert.