This is a research paper in english literature involving Othello by Essay

This is a research paper in english literature involving Othello by William Shakespeare and The Outsider (aka The Stranger) by Albert Camus - Essay Example He begins to act differently, does not know himself anymore, and feels torn by conflicting emotions. Freud would explain these same manifestations as being under the direction of unconscious motives and potentially identifiable as having originated in early experience. Jung believes the roots of many such complexes emerge from the past group identities of the collective unconscious, and that when alienation takes place it is not always a matter of what one has lived; it could be a matter of what one has failed to live, at least consciously. The alienation theme has been used in trying to capture man's plight as a social animal. Adler's man, who fails to evolve social interest. It is unfortunate that Sartre's heroes too often seem to be abstractions created by the author purposely to illustrate men who strive to integrate humanity by committing themselves through an action which is also an abstraction. These characters ultimately fail to become great tragic heroes because of this very abstractness. They are likable puppets, but the human element is too often missing in their characters. Whether the alienation of the heroes of Sartre is as painful as that of other characters in the modern French drama is debatable. These heroes can forget their personal solitude in action, as few other exiles in the contemporary theatre can. But insofar as they are superior men their alienation is more painful to us than that of others because we not only sympathize with their anguish but admire intellectually what they represent. Othello Othello's first appearance in the play is a refutation of slander. In I.ii his conduct in facing Brabantio's party ("Keep up your bright swords . . .") nullifies the "thick lips," the "lascivious Moor," of earlier dialogue and lays a foundation for the council scene in which Othello gains a respect close to veneration. Thus, a deserved reputation, casually sensed by its possessor and pointedly accepted by others, answers the scurrility of Iago and Brabantio. Othello's easy bearing of his good name, his lack of egoistic concern for it, introduces the normal or objective aspect of the reputation theme. Thus, in the first two acts Shakespeare presents his theme in a dramatic triumph by Othello over slander, and in an equally dramatic loss of honor by Cassio which is amplified by strong lyrical expression. In these episodes reputation is asserted within its sound and normal limits. But there is also its inverted aspect; if we return to the beginning of Othello we may follow a parallel stressing of good name in the form of self-regard and prideful delusion. Othello has shown no previous morbidity, but the audience has become "used" to the trait as Iago, obsessed with reputation, has dwelt first ironically and then with malignant conviction upon the rumor about Othello and Emilia. The obsession growing, he has spawned a rumor of his own, the Cassio Desdemona slander, and has suddenly disclosed in soliloquy that he believes it also. In the temptation scene a clearly similar process is enacted with Othello as the victim. As the contrary aspects of reputation meet in a kind of dramatic dialectic, the Captain, tensed by his regard for good name, assumes the previous pattern of the Ancient: first the surmise, then the play