A Study On Ethical Predicament Of Othello

As the only tragedy depicting the asymmetrical social relations between blacks and whites in Shakespeare's four famous tragedies,Othello takes the classic of classics.The play is choppy in plot and deals with rich topics such as love and intermarriage,jealousy and credulity,betrayal and revenge.Once published,it has become a popular work for Shakespeare researchers at home and abroad.So far,there have been numerous studies and comments on it.The research perspective mainly includes character image,personality analysis,identity,cultural identity,image function research,psychological analysis,feminism,post-colonialism interpretation and so on.In recent years,with the rise of Literary Ethics Criticism,scholars begin to reexamine and reinterpret the ethical phenomena and problems in literary works from the perspective of Literary Ethics Criticism,which provides a possibility to interpret the rich ethical ideas implied in Othello.Based on Ethical Literary Criticism,this thesis attempts to make a comprehensive exploration of the ethical predicament of the main characters in Othello to reveal rich ethical thoughts of the tragedy.This thesis tries to return to the historical scene at that time and focuses on the social objective ethical environment and individual subjective ethical context in which the main characters in Othello gradually go to ethical predicament,clarifying the living plight of the blacks discriminated by whites and the tragic fate of the women oppressed by patriarchy.On the basis of this,the thesis elaborates the ethical predicament of Othello,Desdemona and Iago,pointing out that the chaos and destruction of social ethics,family ethics,ethnic ethics and interpersonal ethics are the fundamental reasons for their tragic fate.Finally,it briefly analyzes the self-redemption of Othello and Emilia after their awakening of ethical consciousness and the social redemption demonstrated by social punishment.The study shows that Othello is an ethical tragedy under the interaction of subjective and objective ethical environment.On the one hand,in the feudal society of Europe where racial discrimination is extremely serious,colored people,especially blacks,are destined to become the "others",marginalized and persecuted.And women are also doomed to suffer from the mental oppression and physical discipline under the dominance of patriarchy.Obviously,objectively unreasonable ethnic ethics and gender ethics are the main reasons for the tragic fate of the characters in the play.On the other hand,the lack of reason of characters is another cause for their ethical predicament.In particular,in order to satisfy the inflated desire,the individual egoists never hesitate to lose their rationality,let the animal factor make a mess and trample on the good human morality,seriously damaging the ethical order that maintains the normal operation of society.The return of reason and the reconstruction of rational and orderly ethical order in Othello are extremely significant.Through exploring the ethical predicament in Othello,the study not only extends the research perspective of Othello but also contributes to providing a historical reference and ethical guidance for the construction of harmonious society in China.