William Shakespeare’s Othello is a unique tragedy in which it focuses on the cause and effect of love. Love is the strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything, whereas to be in love is when an individual has a profoundly tender, passionate affection as well as feelings of warm personal attachment for another person- it is not found but just falls upon a person. By studying Othello, it can be derived that the love felt between certain characters is based on various factors: lust, pity, dependence.All of which are interrelated with the other, thus, the quality of love shared among each character is questioned. Much of the love shared between the two central characters: Othello and Desdemona, builds the foundation of the story’s plot, as the changes that it undergoes leads to some of the most significant actions made.
The love in the relationship of Othello and Desdemona is initiated in a tight bond filled with overwhelming passion. Othello loves Desdemona as an extension of himself. Their marriage is sustained by an idealized vision of Desdemona serving as the sole object of his projected romantic passion.She is not only his love but love itself, banishing all chaos from the universe as suggested by the allusion to the classical legend that Love was the first of the gods to spring out of original chaos… “I do love thee; and when I do not,/ Chaos is come again”…Even the sight of her after a short separation can cause for surplus happiness… “It gives me great wonder as my content/ To see you here before me. O, my soul’s joy”… Othello’s insistent love and increasing dependence on Desdemona proves to be fatal, as not only is she killed, but him also- this is as a result of her “disloyalty” to him.It is through Iago’s duplicitous persona, which allows Othello into believing that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him.
In his tainted frame of mind, Desdemona’s sexuality becomes an unbearable threat to him, sparking ideas of her disloyalty, and to prove it he uses her warmth and devotion against her. When Othello demands Desdemona to “Fetch me the handkerchief. My mind misgives”, and she is unable to do so, Othello is infuriated and combusts, oblivious to any trickery or manipulation played on Iago’s part.This determines the key scene as it highlights the peak of Othello’s jealousy, which is so great that it overrules all senses. In the prelude of this act, Othello’s monologue reveal that he equates the once loved Desdemona to his own mother who if should have “lost it/ Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye/ Should hold her loathed and his spirit should hunt/ After new fancies”, suggesting of his increasing suspicions and jealousy.
Thus, their love is initial love is destroyed through sexual jealousy.
