Othello - Tragedy

I'll be tackling question 2, which asks what kind of play is Othello, a tragedy, comedy, melodrama, or farce? Well, it's definitely a tragedy, which rules out comedy, as the two are mutually exclusive. and it's not a melodrama since those were really invented later, and it's not nearly ridiculous enough to be a farse.

So why is it a tragedy? Well you've got your hero, Othello, who starts off as a good and decent person. In the first act or two he is portrayed as an extremely wise, loving, and level-headed man. Why, he's practically the posterchild of decency. After he is dragged from his bed in the dead of night by an angry Italian mob, rather than let his emotions get the best of him, he simply agrees to their demands and eventually makes it out alright. However, Othello most certainly has a tragic flaw, called a hubris. Othello's flaw is essentially that deep underneath his apparent level-headed nature, like most people, he is inclined to jealousy. This, coupled with his poor judge of character, allows Iago to take advantage of his doubts and suspicions in order to gradually decay whatever was good in Othello and turn him into a despicable person. By the end of the play, Othello is a hate-filled, bloodthirsty murderer and has fallen quite a long way from his original standing of a good and decent hero. His tragic flaw eventually consumes him and ultimately kills him. This fall from a decent hero to a hateful man certainly denotes a tragedy, and just to make sure that we don't try to call this anything but tragic, he kills himself in the end.

Now, there is in fact a second part to this question, which asks exactly how important it is that the audience understands that the play is a tragedy? Well, I didn't know it was a tragedy until around act three, and I certainly had no trouble understanding what was happening. Really, it only seems that the difference between Tragedy and Comedy is the ending. If the hero succumbs to their flaw and dies then it's a tragedy, but if he prevails over his flaw and survives, well it's a comedy. Really, the only thing that knowledge of the type of play gave me was a nice spoiler for the ending. Lovely. So all in all, no, I don't really think that knowing what kind of play it is beforehand is really all that helpful.