Literature

In real life as well as in the fictional life, the people or readers always want happy endings. However, in fictions, the authors sometimes will avoid happy ending and instead use tragic ending to make an impact on the spectator or audience or reader. They argue that creating tragic endings will make the reader of a play, hold on to the creation for a longer time. So, tragic ending is a ploy, used by many writers including the greatest of them all, William Shakespeare. And in the play, “Othello”, Shakespeare achieves the tragic ending by focusing on the character’s failure to see the differences between the appearance and the reality. That is, sometimes, what one sees is not the real thing, it may be a façade with some other things behind. The characters in the play fail to see the difference between appearance and reality, and thereby develop false notions in their minds.

Appearance and Reality
In the play “Othello” Shakespeare uses this theme of differences in appearance and reality in scenes or situations involving all the main characters. That is, among the main characters in “Othello”, the character of Othello and Brabantio unintentionally utilize this difference or actually become victims of this difference, leading to the suffering of their related and associated lives. On the other hand, Iago use this difference intentionally and wrongfully for meeting his own selfish ends. So, this theme of difference is relevant to the main characters of Othello, Iago and also Brabantio.

Othello becomes the victim of this difference, when he doubts Cassio, after Cassio has a private conversation with his wife, Desdemona. Actually, both of them conversed about how to get Cassio’s job, which got lost due to Iago’s machinations. And, it was the same Iago’s deluding words which only pushes Othello to forget the reality and instead believe the false appearance that his wife Desdemona and Cassio are having an illegal affair. “…I cannot think it, that he would steal away so guilty like.” (Shakespeare lll.iii,42) - Iago tells to Othello. Therefore, Othello without finding what really transpired in the meeting between Desdemona and Cassio starts to suspect his wife deceived by Iago’s words and by Cassio’s fast stride. It is the first in the series of incidents, in which Othello in spite being a noble king, fails to see the difference between the appearance and reality.

While speaking about Othello’s misinterpretation of appearance and reality, actually his own appearance is far from reality. That is, in Shakespeare's time, black was considered as the bad, unwanted color, and even as the representation of evil. As an ironical situation, Othello is actually a black (racial identity) but in reality he is actually a noble king who was known for his honesty. Here also there is a difference between appearance and reality with tragic consequences. “However attractive Othello may be to Desdemona, his physical appearance clearly exhibits the reverse of this. He is black (devil’s color), ugly (by Elizabethan standards), and bizarre to the eyes of a somewhat enclosed society.” (Hawkes 102). Talking about Othello’s nobility, it was this noble nature, which attracted Desdemona to choose him as her life partner, but which gave the feeling of deception to her father, Brabantio.  That is, Brabantio thinks Desdemona is an innocent, naïve girl who was wooed by Othello using manipulative methods. Othello’s appearance also raises issues with the Brabantio’s statement that his daughter got attracted to

Othello mainly because he is black, “run from her guardage to the sooty bosom of a thing such as thou,” (Shakespeare l. ii,71). But, Brabantio’s notions about person’s appearance and the actions they commit, do not match each other. That is, he thinks that her innocent looking daughter (physically) will not take the extreme step of marrying without his permission and only Othello should have deceived her. But, Desdemona did not take this decision because of Othello’s compulsion or deception as perceived by her father, but because of her loyalty to him. It is due to the same reason of loyalty; she decided to marry him also, and not due to the color of his skin. So, Brabantio’s views based on appearance and are far from the reality. He also unknowingly becomes a victim to this difference.

Moreover, the character who epitomizes and manipulates this difference between appearance and reality is Iago. That is, from the beginning of the play, Iago’s mission is to overthrow Othello’s close confidante Cassio and reach that position. So, even though, he looks pure he has lot of evil inside him. To achieve his dangerous urges, he manipulates Othello leading to tragic consequences, which included his own death. That is, in all the scenes in which Othello suspects Desdemona of infidelity, it is lago, who heightens the charge by adding inappropriate versions of the events or situations.

The characters in the play “Othello” are caught in the situations where they find it difficult to differentiate between fake or setup appearance and the original reality. This failure only leads to the development of misleading thoughts and the consequent death of all the major characters including Othello, Desdemona, Iago and Emilia and gave Othello the tag of tragedy.