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.

EROS & THANATOS IN OTHELLO

In Othello Shakespeare  shows these two drives in Iago and Desdemona. Above all, he shows them mixed in one character, Othello.

Desdemona is a naïve girl, completely in love with Othello. She is totally unaware of  Thanatos; she is not an aggressive person or a frustrated person, and much less evil. More exactly, she does not conceive those ideas. In fact, she does not understand neither Iago’s trick nor Othello’s murderous intentions. We could say she knows only Eros, but actually, she is simply naïve.

Iago, differently from Desdemona, He is completely evil, jealous and frustrated. his only aim is to take revenge on Othello and Cassio and to do this, he implicates many people, and in the end, he is arrested. Therefore, he pays his revenge with his life.

Othello: Othello, as we said, is a complex character, so he acts led by both drives. He loves Desdemona so much that elopes with her but because of his jealousy, he kills her. This contrast is showed in the Othello's soliloquy before the murder:

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,–

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!–

It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood;

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,

And smooth as monumental alabaster.

Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

Put out the light, and then put out the light:

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore,

Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,

Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d the rose,

I cannot give it vital growth again.

It must needs wither: I’ll smell it on the tree.

Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,

And love thee after. One more, and this the last:

So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep,

But they are cruel tears: this sorrow’s heavenly;

It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.

It is just a play, fiction then, but it is a perfect example of the thoughts which may lead a man to commit a feminicide

FEMICIDE TODAY

Femicide (or feminicide) is a sex-based hate crime term, broadly defined as "the intentional killing of females (women or girls) because they are females", though definitions vary depending on its cultural context.

Feminist author Diana E. H. Russell was the first person to define and disseminate this term in modern times, in 1976. She defines the word as "the killing of females by males because they are female." Other feminists place emphasis on the intention or purpose of the act being directed at females specifically because they are female; others include the killing of females by females.

The causes of this hatred of women must be searched in the historical male chauvinism of medieval society, during which the roles of male and female were very crystallized and the women were considered inferior. This conception of women has continued for centuries Even though men and women are considered equal by law in many countries many men they remain inferior.

Therefore in my opinion, and not only, the solution is more respect and equality between people, regardless of gender and attitudes. I know it isn’t easy to do, but somewhere we should start. I think the idea of men’s superiority is a mentality issue  which is rooted in centuries of men driven history. In the same way, we need lots of people who believe in gender equality. How can we reach this objective? It isn't simple to overcome convictions, beliefs and customs that are thousands of years old!  I particularly like HeForShe's  points of view on the matter. Listen to Emma Watson pointing it out at the UN.