VIOLENCE AND PASSION IN OTHELLO’S PERSONALITY

 

In Act 5, scene 2 Shakespeare stages a femicide: the murder of Desdemona by Othello. In the scene Othello is torn between two drives,  the instincts of Eros and Thanatos.

OTHELLO, FREUD AND FEMICIDE

 

 

The murder scene from Act V of Othello contains an act of femicide: Othello kills his wife Desdemona, whom he accuses of being unfaithful. Othello acts under two basic instincts or impulses, called Eros (sexual instinct) and Thanatos (aggressive instinct). According to psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, human beings share these natural instincts with animals but the difference is that humans can (or at least should) control them, letting their “ego” prevail and suppress those instincts. Actually, it’s our subconscious to be exposed to these impulses, but there’s still our ego whose job is to try to calm them down.

OTHELLO: EROS & THANATOS

In “Othello”, famous tragedy written by William Shakespeare in the 17th century, we find Desdemona murdered by Othello, her husband, which is an example of femicide. Therefore, already in the 17^th century there was the idea of “crime of passion" which unfortunately is still relevant. 

Now the question is: “Why does a man kill his lover ?”

FREUD: EROS & THANATOS

                                    

According to Sigmund Freud in the subconscious of human beings, two basic instincts (or drives) coexist, which he calls Eros and Thanatos.  

EROS

It is the life drive, the tendency of human beings to look for pleasure, either carnal pleasure or moral pleasure. Eros is represented by a true relationship, true love or true friendship, but also the happiness due to good acts. In Othello, we can find Eros in the scene of elopement of Desdemona and Othello, but also in that of the murder.

THANATOS

 On the contrary, Thanatos is the aggressive drive, the instinct of death, the instinct to destroy everything. It represents the manifestation of anger and of frustration of a person, a blind rage, which brings human beings to do all manner of things in order to vent this aggression, but with the result to be deleterious at the end.