In this essay I will be analysing the ways in which characters flaws are shown in Othello, Porphyria’s lover and Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister. I believe that these flaws act as a catalyst to help push the story along. This being said, many of the characters have flaws which lead directly to their downfall. Which is what the category of tragedy is based around. The flaws which most of these characters have are often human errors which we often cannot help.
I believe that Othello’s jealousy is the main reason for his downfall, although he does have other flaws in his character, his envy is displayed when Iago warns him of jealousy and foreshadows the finale of the play. ”O beware, my lord, of jealousy it is the green eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” This quote is taken directly from the scene in which Iago is first hinting that Desdemona is cheating on Othello and he warns him not to be jealous. Here Shakespeare has used a metaphor to display jealousy, he has depicted it as a “green eyed monster” green is often the colour associated with jealousy and the fact that he has illustrated it as a monster tells us that it is definitely a negative thing, which will inflict some harm to Othello. Although we know that Othello can prevent this monster from bringing harm to himself as Shakespeare says that it “doth mock the meat it feeds on.” The key word in this sentence is feed, as to feed on something you are not putting any strain on one’s self to eat which is contrary to it being called a monster. As monster stereo typically are considered predators, this would mean that Othello is almost offering himself to this monster by succumbing to jealousy. This here speeds up the demise of Othello and foreshadows the ending to the audience as we could compare Iago to this monster.
In “Porphyria’s lover” many metaphors are used to show the lust between Porphyria and the narrator. The metaphor which is used to depict his lust, which is his main downfall. “Straight she shut out the storm.” This would tell us that she is shutting out all the people’s opinions or judgments that they have, of the two being together, by the use of personification which further justifies why I believe it to be of the people’s opinion. It then goes on to say “And kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up, and all the cottage warm.” This is a metaphor as the grate cannot “blaze up” without the necessary steps. This leads me to believe that it is actually about the lust that the narrator feels for this women. This is further supported by the effect of the words “blaze up” these are emotive words and people often link the words passion and blaze, which would again highlight his lust for this women. Browning’s intent here is to show that his lust is bad and causes dire consequences. This feeling of lust quickens the rate of decay. When taking into consideration in this play that immediately after he admits that he has some form of emotional attachment to her, he strangles her with her own hair.
Browning uses a similar technique in the soliloquy of the Spanish cloister. Browning uses sibilance for effect, this works because people relate the S noise to the hissing of a snake which is important in this period of time. “With Sanchicha, telling stories, Steeping tresses in the tank.” The repetition of the S gives the audience a feel that this monk isn’t as divine as he leads us to believe. In this poem the monk is so envious of his brother Lawrence that he has strayed from grace. The snake noise which I spoke about, would again show this Jacobean audience that this monk is in fact envious of his brother. Also throughout the poem he tells us about his thoughts of making his brother fall from grace. The repetition highlights the extent to which he has gone thinking about it. “Once you trip on it, entails” this tells us he isn’t loving and is untrustworthy this makes the audience understand that he has a warped and misguided view on Brother Lawrence. The narrator also mentions Satan which would provoke the audience to finally see that this monk is in fact misguided. ”Or, there’s Satan!” here the speaker is tempting the fact of striking a deal with Satan. This aggravates the audience to finally abandon this monk as a valid figure of religion.
Othello has another crucial flaw which helps aid his envy; wrath. Othello admits that he can sometimes allow his anger to cloud his judgement. His anger is clearly depicted in act 3 scene 3 when Iago twists Othello’s thoughts and convinces him that Cassio is sleeping with Desdemona. His rage towards Cassio is then clearly shown through sibilance which has substantial importance. “Within these three days let me hear thee say that Cassio’s not alive.” The S sound is repeated 4 times in one sentence. The S sound is important as it is linked to a snake which is the animal which tricked Eve into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge, I believe this links directly to both of Othello’s key flaws being one of the seven deadly sins. This is crucial to this time as the audience would have been religious and to highlight this to a highly religious Jacobean audience would have a huge effect on the way in which these people would view Othello and how his character has changed. They would realise he has been consumed by his rage, Shakespeare wishes to highlight Othello’s rage. The ways in which Shakespeare and Browning use sibilance are very similar and I believe this is since they both come from a time where religion is respected highly and atheistic views were condemned.
Inside scene three of act one of Othello, Shakespeare uses imagery and repetition to show what I infer to be one of the major imperfections in character within this tragedy. Iago verbally expresses, “I hate the moor”. This particular word is intentionally utilized by Shakespeare to reveal to the audience how Iago views the relationship between himself and Othello, which evidently is ungenuine. Shakespeare used the word ‘hate’ because of the paramount and significant definition it holds. I see that when Iago uses the word ‘moor’ he is talking about Othello as previously in the play, when Iago and Roderigo are discussing Desdomona and Othello’s commitment to each other which wasn’t long before Act one scene three. Additionally “moor” is defined by a male with a dark complexion, who is predominantly from an Islamic background. In this play there is only one character that could fit this description which I believe reassures the audience he is referring to Othello.
Within the same scene we can see Iagos flaws of paranoia becoming apparent, Shakespeare uses repetition as a device to display Iago’s paranoia. When Roderigo leaves, Iago makes it obvious to the audience that it is a soliloquy, by saying “I hate the moor, And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets he’s done my office. I know not if’t b true yet I..” Here is another example of his paranoia. Shakespeare does this to create the notion to the audience, that his hatred is expanding and this displays the extent of his hate towards Othello very well.
The Laboratory is a poem written by Robert Browning which was published in 1844. In this poem I think that Browning has used figurative language in the same way to present flaws in most if not all characters. Stanza three line ten it becomes apparent that revenge, hatred and anger are all put into this character. Looking in to this quotation we can see that the character exclaimed, “Pound at thy powder, — I am not in haste” from this quotation and my own knowledge of the poem, we can learn that the protagonist is a female in a laboratory with an apothecary. Almost instantly the audience is inclined to believe that the woman is instructing the apothecary to pound the paste, this is the poison the apothecary is producing. It is stated clearly that she is in no rush, I believe that Browning has done this to show how significant it is that the poison is made correctly with no fault. Being almost certain, the apothecary in the lab is used to jobs of this sort, she has come with special requirements for the poison to be a paste. With the apothecary taking his time and being focused, this will enable him to do make a high standard poison. This shows that she has been warped by something to make her hell bent on performing this act.
Browning begins early on with this line. He uses alliteration, I am confident with my deduction that he has used alliteration to display the action of making the paste. As a result of this quotation we can see this character’s fatal flaws, are hatred and revenge. Displayed here are her fatal flaws which are anger and hatred, they have changed her so much she is able to wait patiently without complaining. When compared to Othello we can see that there are some instances which are similar, the only differences I believe is that they are displayed differently this is because many characters have similar flaws.
To conclude I believe both poets use different instances of figurative language to display similar themes. Some effects that they use these devices for are similar and I believe this to be because religion is still a key figure at this point in time. Although they do also differentiate at times, as a result i believe both are amazing writers who have used figurative devices to display flaws in character.
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