Tragedy in Medea and Othello

Medea and Othello:

The protagonists Medea and Othello both suffer a crisis of identity. At once, they are privileged, respected members of their communities. As a result of decisions they make, and decisions made about them, they lose their power. Notably, these characters show some similarities and differences despite being written in different periods. While Medea was written by Euripedes during the classical period and Othello written by Shakespeare during the romantic era, the two stories present tragedies that are similar and different in various aspects including story plots and settings. Medea and Othello are considered as stories of tragedy because of the fatal flaws in the characters of these individuals that contributed to their ruin.

Medea had lived together with Jason as husband and wife in Corinth after fleeing from Colchis, Medea's first homeland. The couple was forced to flee from Colchis after Medea betrayed King Aaetes and Iolcos following the role she played in the death of King Pelias. After living together for a while and having two children, Medea and Jason's living arrangement is almost coming to an end. In contrast, Othello is an aggressive and skilled soldier with a Moorish background and experienced from years of service of the Venetian Republic. Othello elopes with Desdemona, the beautiful daughter of an esteemed Venetian Senator. Following his deployment to Cyprus, he is tricked into believing that Desdemona is an adultress and murders. However, Othello commits suicide after discovering that he was manipulated by Iago to believe that Desdemona is an adultress.

These two tragedies show some fatal flaws of the characters that culminate in their individual ruin. Medea is a jealous, possessive woman who does not stop at anything as long she can achieve her goals. Euripides says, "She is inspired with superhuman force. Her wrongs and hate fill all the sky." (p.3). Actually, if Medea was not jealous and possessive, she wouldn't have gone for exile and ended up killing her two children. Othello has relatively similar fatal flaws as Medea because he ends up killing Desdemona out of jealousy that was based on Iago's manipulation. His decision to elope with Desdemona was also an indication of possessiveness that ended up into a tragedy i.e. loss of lives. As stated by Shakespeare and Holste, "The moral, expressed by Desdemona before her death, is that it is a mistake to marry someone so different from oneself." (p.17).

Medea and Othello's fatal flaws that propelled them to ruin was aggravated by their communities' recognition of the flaws and seeming support to destroy the protagonists. Since Medea's community believed in reasoning rather than emotions, it did not focus on the violent part of this tragedy. Much of the focus of the play and story was on Medea's good parts i.e. sections where the character flaws, particularly violence are not described. This contributed to a tolerance of violence as well as aggressive behaviors that propelled her to ruin. Actually, the problems and eventual tragedy in the community were all driven by good intentions that were generally supported by the community. In Othello, while the community recognizes the difference between good and bad or evil, it does relatively nothing to prevent the bad. While Desdemona is considered as virtuous, good woman, the community does relatively nothing to prevent her from evil men i.e. Iago and Othello.