Othello Act V, Scene ii

"Set you down this, and say besides that in Aleppo once, where a malignant and a turbaned Turk beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog and smote him, thus. (Stabs himself.) - Othello.

For this blog, I am going to answer a question found on p. 1119 of my text book.


Is the play a tragedy or comedy, a melodrama or farce?  If a comedy, is it primarily romantic or satiric?  Does it mingle aspects of these types of drama?  How important to experiencing the drama is the audience's awareness of the classification of the play?

This play is definitely more of a tragedy than of a comedy.  For one, three people die in the end as a result of a different character's evil persuasions.  Othello kills his wife Desdemona, Iago kills his wife Emilia, and Othello kills himself after realizing the terrible thing he has done.  If this were a comedy, it would have been more happy.  It is important to realize that in Shakespearean time, comedy was not necessarily used to reference something funny.  It was more characterized by something happy and not sad.  This play was by no means happy so it is safe to say that it can be characterized as a tragedy.  If I had to say whether this play is a melodrama or a farce, I would probably characterize it as a melodrama.  A melodrama exaggerates the plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions.  Although I am not sure it is necessarily exaggerating the plot and characters, it is for sure appealing to the emotions.  The audience is frustrated that no other characters realize the evil Iago is doing until the end when it is too late.  Then the audience is also horrified with the deaths that occur at the end and sad that there was no happy ending.  Finally, one must truly be immersed in the play and experience it as if he or she was actually in it to be able to classify it.  Without being immersed in the play, one would not be able to realize that it is appealing to the emotions and that it is in turn a melodrama.  Then, if one didn't really care about the characters who died, he or she might not really feel as if it were a tragedy.