本文是一篇英语论文，本文发现，悲剧《奥赛罗》和喜剧《冬天的故事》在“嫉妒”主题上具有隐喻联系，《冬天的故事》并非有情节瑕疵而正是莎士比亚妙笔生花的喜剧书写。
Chapter OneEvents Mapped from Jealousy in Othello and TheWinter’s Tale
A.Jealousy Events in Othello:Disclosure,Brawl and Handkerchief
1.Marriage Disclosure
Othello begins with Roderigo’s complaints to Iago about his failure in courtingDesdemona and his emotional accusations of Iago being the helper of Desdemona andOthello’s love affair.Roderigo makes an obviously failing admirer to Desdemona as herfather Brabantio states remorsefully that“O that you had had her!”(1.1.174).Brabantio’s sigh of regrets and Roderigo’s accusations of Iago’s help are combined toconfirm the fact that Roderigo suffers failure in his courtship of Desdemona.Reversely,Othello as a Moor stranger is definitely in striking contrast with Roderigo as a nativeVenetian.Modern scholars and critics are apt to support Shakespeare’s discriminatorydescriptions of his great tragic character as“black”,but George Lyman Kittredgepointed out in 1941 that Shakespeare shaped an Oriental man of Othello who was aMoor of royal blood(qtd.in Butcher 243).Shakespeare’s description of Othello asblack cannot be accepted without examination while Brabantio’s outrage is justified (Butcher 244).
Othello’s military status weighs not more than Roderigo’s Venetian status with hispurse but they are distinct in racial identities.Nevertheless,Desdemona is attracted by athick-lipped black Othello while her father would rather choose Roderigo to be hisson-in-law instead of an alienated stranger.Her choice runs counter to the logic ofVenetians.Roderigo’s failure is more of a violent blow to his mentality.Facing theunchangeable situation of Desdemona’s established marriage with Othello,Roderigosees his failing life as a“torment”(1.3.304).Silly Roderigo should desire“aprescription to die”(1.3.305)for venting his anger.It is apparent that all sufferings inhis failure of love have triggered Roderigo’s sentimental hatred or a kind of sexualjealousy of Othello is reasonable to be held in Roderigo.Furthermore,the fact that Iagohates Othello is introduced by Shakespeare in his definite reply to Roderigo,that“despise me if I do not”(1.1.7).His emotion of hatred is often repeated by his emphasisof his revenge action.When Iago replies to Roderigo that he hates“the Moor”and his“cause is hearted”(1.3.350-351),he retells his hatred towards Othello in order toconvince Roderigo who would like to be his purse.
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B.Jealousy Events in The Winter’s Tale:Escape,Imprisonment andSeparation
1.Polixenes and Camillo’s Escape
Leontes fails to invite his best friend Polixenes to stay longer.So,he assignsHermione with the task of persuading Polixenes.Hermione’s successful persuasionshould be a joy for Leontes but triggers his nameless and unhappy dissatisfaction.Hermione is happy for Polixenes’stay and gives one hand to him.Their hands shakingof“paddling palms and pinching fingers”(1.2.115)is far too intimate for Leontes.Hermione’s overdone behavior is deemed by Leontes as a sexual signal to Polixenes.Animpractical thought has sprouted in Leontes’mind.His suspicion of adultery betweenhis friend and his wife tortures him and he cannot wait to confirm it(in this way he actually has convicted them).Leontes’misery is noticed by Hermione and Polixenes sohe takes advantage of it to leave them alone.In this way,he wants to see whether theyhave betrayed him.He informs Hermione of entertaining Polixenes with a passion oflove and hides behind to spot any intimate behavior between them.Leontes sees howHermione“holds up the neb”to Polixenes(1.2.182)and their kiss-like behavior that(actually they are just laughing at some jests)convinces Leontes of his being cuckolded.All of their behaviors are signs of their disloyalty and betrayal in jealous Leontes’eyes.Leontes’concept of jealousy will be realized through his revengeful maps.Leontesassumes that Hermione’s successful persuasion is due to their illegitimate love affair aswell as it implies their betrayal,or actually his concept of jealousy is mapped in hisimaginary events of betrayal.
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Chapter TwoThematic Equivalence of Jealousy in Othello and TheWinter’s Tale
A.Seeds in the Bible:Cain’s Tragedy and Joseph’s Brothers’Comedy
The plots of the plays are centered around the jealousy theme,or in a more accurateway,the jealousy motive,the driving force of the plot development.Thus,jealousymatters,and in a topological way the jealous space is necessary to be traced back orforward in other works.Since the western culture is based on Christianity,the biblicalseed of jealousy is found.After classical mythology,the Bible makes up half the bodyof writing materials that Shakespeare employed to construct his sonnets,plays andnarrative poems.It is not surprising that Shakespeare was immersed in a Christianculture with his enormous knowledge of the Scriptures,his amazingly retentive memory,and his richly associative imagination(Curren-Aquino 148).So,there is a metaphoricalchain connecting Othello and The Winter’s Tale.It is interesting to find that the jealousytheme is the chain.Since the two plays develop from the same jealousy seed,why arethey quite different in their plot development and audience response?It is possible thatthe biblical chain of jealousy can explain more about it.
In Genesis,both Cain and Abel are Eve and Adam’s sons as well as brothers of thesame blood.Cain slays Abel because the Lord does not accept his offering but favors Abel’s.That tragic fratricide is caused by Cain’s jealousy.In western culture,it can beacknowledged that such psychological concept of jealousy appears.Cain’s cruel andmonstrous murder as well as Abel’s innocent and tragic death are definitely unbearableand ethically notorious.Of course,Cain also pays the price for his behavior in that he iscursed and driven out from homeland as well as leads a vagrant life.It can be said thatjealous space is mapped into Cain’s brother-murder tragedy.To draw Cain’spsychological events from his psychological life space,Cain’s tradition from theGenesis is well known in later literary works like Cain by George Gordon Byron.Cain’scannibalized murder is a simple plot.And what kind of relationship is it to the tragedyin Othello?Andrew Bernstein gives his answer that“an appropriate thematic title forthis play is The Vengeance of Cain”and“men,not gods,wreak their own destruction inShakespeare’s world”,pointing out that Othello displays execrable judgment ofcharacter of credulity(37-38).That leads to his downfall and that of his innocent wife.
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B.Adaptation of Seeds:Giraldi Cinthio’s Tragedy and RobertGreene’s Comedy
“Winter”is a reminder of a season usually associated with suffering,decline anddeath that are the stuff of tragedy(Moncrief 146).The title“The Winter’s Tale”has asymbolic meaning,and the sadness is compacted in the word“winter”as Mamilliussays that“a sad tale’s best for winter”(2.1.25).So,the“sad”tale predicts the oncomingdisaster in winter.This play can be divided into two parts.The former one is a tragictale including the first three acts and the latter one is a comic story of the last two acts.The former one is also more relevant to the tragic history of Othello and the later one isa complementary story which adds comic characteristics to its whole plot.It is in starkcontrast with George Wilson Knight’s view that the play consists of three sectionswhere the first is tragic,the middle is pastoral and the last is hard to be defined andclassified,whereas a strong suggestion throughout the season-myth,with a balance ofwinter against summer is taken up by him,and at this point that is reasonable(qtd inBloom 72).It seems to be a broken story in which a little tragedy is detected and alltragic factors are held firmly in Nature’s vastness.The structure of the play is placed in its seemingly broken but whole plot.The natural change of seasons weighs much in thecomic movement of plots,just to take the example of Autolycus’“summer songs”(4.3.10).Summer brings“the jay”(4.3.10)and the time of summer means the comicplot placed in a merry setting.The merry atmosphere is completely contrary to theformer tragic one,and the summer time is a turning point in its plots.Such a turn doesnot happen in Othello.Such an enormous turn of plots in a way embodies the irony ofthe comedy and becomes an emphasis of amusing effects and unexpectedness of itsending dramatized by Shakespeare,especially in the connotations of“winter”and“summer”.“Winter”and“summer”are antonyms containing the opposite concepts.Another point is the time chorus in act 4 scene 1 and the role of“time”is of greatimportance in dividing the play’s structure,to which the method of bisection is moreappropriate.More concrete evidence for bisecting its plots lies in the number of pages.The first tragic parts take up 49 pages and the comic parts do 56 pages,almost equallydistributed.And 7 extra pages are just a triumph of comic elements to achieve a comicturning plot.
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Chapter Three Thematic Deformation of Jealousy in Othello and The Winter’s Tale .............. 57
A. Homotopic Themes: Unequal Identity and Tragic Love in Othello .................58
B. Homotopic Themes: Equal Identity and Comic Love in The Winter's Tale ..................... 67
Conclusion ............................ 75
correspond to Cain and Joseph’s brothers respectively.That metaphorical consistence ofplots and characterization is topological equivalence.Themes of love and identity arehomotopic deformations of the jealousy theme.
A.Homotopic Themes:Unequal Identity and Tragic Love in Othello
Peter Hollindale asserts that Othello is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies of love thatshares some tragic beauty in common with Romeo and Juliet(43).Most critical essaysabout Othello focus mainly on its jealousy and a tragedy of jealousy is preferablydiscussed.Less criticisms would be concentrated on its underlying love theme behindjealousy.Eric B.Song expounds that in Othello,“jealousy serves as the dramaticvehicle of a politico-theological problem that neither religion nor the state can resolve”and drives Othello and Desdemona’s Christian marriage to destruction(98).Eventhough marriage should have completed Othello’s assimilation into the Christian community of Venice,it ends up exposing that incorporation as imperfect.To be morespecific,Othello is also a love tragedy because jealousy is not produced without love.Thus,it is clear that the tragic nature of love is worth exploring.Should love be blamedfor the tragedy in the play?An exploration of love in detail will give answers.In act 1scene 3,Brabantio confronts Othello and accuses him of abducting his daughterDesdemona by using some witchcraft as well as asks the duke of Venice to punishOthello by law.Faced with Brabantio’s furious and groundless accusations,Othellomakes his moving love story known to all.Desdemona loves him“for the dangers”(1.3.166)while Othello loves her“pity”(1.3.167).He confesses that he winsDesdemona’s heart through the sole means of storytelling.His adventurous and valiantstories have moved her.Such a super valiant hero will not miss any kind-heartedwoman.Desdemona is not alone in her awe of the Moor’s deeds.Paradoxically,herdesire mediator is her father Brabantio who as the symbol of patriarchal authority,according to Othello,invites him home and then with no intention facilitates hisdaughter’s carnal desire for Othello(Răducanu 161).Under Desdemona’s hint ofstory-telling,Othello sees love in Desdemona’s eyes and woos her.
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Conclusion
So far,criticisms about“faulty”and inconsistent plots in The Winter’s Tale havebeen clarified by the co-studied theme of jealousy in Othello from a literary topologicalperspective.The jealousy theme derives tragic maps of Othello’s marriage disclosure,Cassio’s brawl and discharge,handkerchief and murders in Othello,as well as comicmaps of Polixenes and Camillo’s escape,Hermione’s imprisonment and Leontes’heirless loss in The Winter’s Tale.According to Lewin’s topological psychology,psychological life space of jealousy is materialized in events or behaviors of the jealouspeople.Othello’s jealousy is discussed frequently.Othello’s behavior of secretlymurdering Cassio and Desdemona is a map of his life space while the map ofhandkerchief that is generated from Iago’s life space,exactly forms the environmentwhich Othello is engulfed in.Besides,it seems that most jealousy events are not closelyrelated to Othello,so it makes sense that the play Othello is a tragedy of Iago’s jealousy,self-directed and self-acted by him.Iago is a perfect director and actor with his craftyand sometimes providential plots for the reason that events of marriage disclosure,Cassio’s brawl and discharge,as well as handkerchief are derived from Iago’s life space.Therefore,Iago and Othello share the topologically equivalent jealousy and that kind ofequivalence also exists in their maps of life spaces.
Topological plurality of life space of jealousy is reflected in two aspects:on the onehand,Shakespeare has tragic and comic treatments of Othello and The Winter’s Talerespectively,and on the other hand,Leontes’jealousy in The Winter’s Tale is one singlespace of jealousy that is jointly produced or doubly combined by Iago’s jealousy andOthello’s jealousy in Othello.It is hard to make a topologically absolute distinctionbetween mapping,equivalence and deformation.They are so closely interwoven thatonly a topological tendency can be made.Equivalence of thematic deformations of onejealousy theme between texts is more of pertinence.It is interestingly found that there isa metaphorical connection between Christian culture and the two plays.The biblicalstories of Cain and Joseph are in a great way metaphorically consistent with Othello andThe Winter’s Tale in their plots about jealousy.Characters of Othello and Leontes correspond to Cain and Joseph’s brothers respectively.That metaphorical consistence ofplots and characterization is topological equivalence.Themes of love and identity arehomotopic deformations of the jealousy theme.
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