The Role of Evil in Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice, Titus Andronicus, and The Tempest

ABSTRACT: This thesis mainly focuses on the acts of evil in William Shakespeare’s three plays The Tempest, Othello, the Moor of Venice and Titus Andronicus in order to illustrate how the characters that represent the self in this case Iago, Titus and Prospero become in the position of the characters of the other Othello, Tamora and Caliban. The characters who are representations of the self reflect Edward Said’s Orientalism, when they aim to destroy the desired victims as they see the other as inferior. Edward Said’s Orientalism illustrates how some selves see themselves superior to the other in terms of culture, religion and race, which brings into existence various binary oppositions of what the self, is not. To be more precise the binary oppositions include being uncivilised, barbaric, ignorant, savage and uneducated, which are all terms that are associated with the other as in the case of Othello, Tamora and Caliban. This then determines the self to be civilised, educated and wise which excludes what the other, is not. It is natural to identify evil with the characters that belong to the other because of the way the self represents them. On the other hand, it is not so natural to identify evil with characters of the self when they are associated with positive characteristics that exclude negative characteristics of the other. This thesis aims to depict how evil as seen in Shakespeare’s characters Iago, Titus and Prospero do not belong to a particular religion, ethnic or cultural group. Whether the individual is a Catholic, Protestant, English, Roman, Moorish or Goth evil lies in the self. The evil in the antagonist Iago and protagonist in Titus, and Prospero are associated with evil thoughts and actions, which comes from within, and defiles the individual. Evil often deals with the reality of individuals who have problems with themselves in the society they live in. So, when the characters Iago, Titus and Prospero act in evil ways they become associated with the characteristics of the other, and they themselves become the uncivilized, barbaric and ignorant ones. Keywords: Evil, Self-Other, William Shakespeare, Edward Said. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………