Othello

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Summary: Honest black man gets tricked. Reminicent of the LAPD
Review: Perfect reading for anyone interested in the history of the worlds evils against the African-American. Othello is just a cool young brother who gets tricked into doing some awful stuff by a guy who is jealous of Othello. Read it....live it...love it

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Summary: Shakespeare's Slump
Review: I love Shakespeare, but this is one play I consider an utter flop. Why it is as popular as it is, I have no idea. Except for Iago, all of the characters are major simpletons. Furthermore, if Othello is suppose to be so noble, why is he so ready to be duped into suspecting his wife of infidelity with hardly any evidence. If he loves his wife, why is he capable of killing her only days after they were married? I can not understand why no one even suspected Iago of being untruthful. Finally, I don't think this was Shakespeare's intention, but Iago comes off as a man who had several valid reasons to be angry. He was turned down for promotion in favor of Cassio (who from what we can gather from the play) is certainly Iago's inferior. He had reason to suspect Othello was screwing around with his wife, and he had reason to believe Cassio was messing around with his wife. While some people believe Iago is simply telling more lies when he speaks of this, we must remember, he reveals these things in soliloquies where there is no point in telling lies. Now if Othello was so enraged at the possible infidelity of his wife, how does he explain his crime of messing around with Iago's wife? Othello's end speech (and for that matter his other so called noble speeches) are infinitely unheroic and unconvincing after he brutally murders his wife. If you want to read a play that shows degeneration, stick with "Macbeth." Or if you want to see a magnificent villain, stick with "Richard III."

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: This play is about an African Venetian General who has just married a white senator's daughter. Iago, Othello's auncient, is upset because Othello chose Michael Cassio as his lietnenant instead of him. Iago devises a plan to make it appear as though Othello's wife Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio. Unfortunately Othello believes Iago and as a result some pretty tragic stuff happens at the end that I cannot reveal. I personally enjoyed this novel because I am a big fan of Shakespeare. Even though Iago was evil he was a well written, well developed villain as were the other characters in the novel.

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Summary: black man as center of a shakespeare play
Review: it is unbeleivable that the great shakespeare would put as a center of one of his greatest plays,a black man in the army. this shows us that the racial issues that go on today were present years before us. I loved the simply because it gives us an idea how evil works and how close it can stand in our side. the only laim part is the ending were we cannot apreciate any sense of guilt by iago and no soul torturing by othello.

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Summary: Great villain, horrible story
Review: This play is truly sickening. The villain, Iago, is actually a fairly common person in real life, the kind of person whose greatest joy is seeing others in misery, who loves to turn people against each other and laugh. I used to work with an Iago. You probably did too. Shakespeare deserves a lot of credit for creating this villain. But the play itself is too much. As I'm sure you know, Othello's sweet wife Desdemona, well maybe I shouldn't spoil the horrid ending if you actually don't know it. Iago convinces Othello that his wife is cheating on him. Othello believes the wrong person. The Iagos of the world are very persuasive, particularly when they are smarter than the people they are lying to.

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Summary: A Great Tragedy
Review: Othello is now one of my favorite Shakesperean plays, right behind Romeo and Juliet. The play contains many universal themes which could be applied to life today, such as jealousy and revenge. The book is sad at the end, but it is very well-written and is effective in evoking emotions in the reader. I recommend this book for anyone who has to read a Shakesperean play or for anyone who wants to read a good book.

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Summary: Julius Lester's version is Wonderful!
Review: I haven't read Shakespeare's version of Othello... yet. Hey, I'm only 13, I don't get the "thees" and "thous"! 'Othello, the Novel', is the NIV of Shakespeare. This story brought me to tears at the end. Any book that can make me cry, I'm sure, is book worth your reading. Geez, what was Iago's problem?

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Summary: a tragedy causes by a man with jealousy via a handkerchief.
Review: the play is good. i have seen the movie and i think it's not as good as the book...othello in the book is stronger...also iago (my favourite,yes) is more serious.

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Summary: Bloody Farce It Is
Review: "Bloody farce" was the indictment of "Othello" made by the dramatist Thomas Rymer, one of Shakespeare's contemporaries. He was right. Perhaps he was right because "Othello" in his time had not yet fully enjoyed the fake aura of a "master play" that it has boasted ever since. "Othello" features the shortcomings and mannerisms of "Hamlet", but without the benefit of the (sporadic) linguistic inventiveness that Shakespeare evinced in the other play (another of those wrongfully praised). In "Othello", though, what we mostly see is an utterly improbable set of characters acting out in an affected, theatrical manner - even while pretending to deal with issues of real life, portraying genuine psychologies. Yes, there is lots of jealousy in this world, and murders do happen - but for anyone to fly off the handle the way Othello does in this play, one has to be supplied with much better and much more extensive corroborative psychologic evidence than what is offered to us in "Othello"! Instead, what we see is basically someone growing insane on the basis of getting to know bits and peaces of ludicrously circumstancial evidence, plus, thanks to a puppet cartoon character named Yago, some innuendoes and probings that are anything but devious or subtle. Yago's behaviour and aims are so obvious and laughable that one would think one was reading a comedy if everything wasn't presented to us in a deadly serious manner, clothed in the solemn literary forms of a tragedy. As a reader or viewer, you simply never get to enjoy "Othello": instead, you spend your time working hard to swallow the improbabilities that the author presumes to present to us as having anything to do with life or human emotions. Similarly, the character of Desdemona is yet another prop on the stage; she serves to provide Shakespeare with more flesh to be disposed of at the end of the play. As in the similarly flawed "Hamlet", there remains an artificially contrived heap of corpses left as the curtain falls down -yet as poetry, "Hamlet" still held some interest and therefore was to a degree palatable; by contrast, "Othello", even as poetry considered separately from the drama, is unexciting and drab. To summarize, "Othello" is a wash-out. The present writer recognizes the right of the previous reviewers to find "Othello" worthwhile; but in the same way contrary readings should also be allowed to be voiced. If the present review could contribute ever so slightly to tarnish the impeccable image that "Othello" enjoys in most readers' minds; or if it at least prevented "Othello" from being listed in Amazon files with an absurd gross rating of five or even four and a half stars - then the present writer would feel vindicated; as well as recompensed for the hours he lost perusing "Othello"!

Rating:
Summary: One of Shakespear's Best
Review: If you have read anything by the Bronte sisters you will love this play, even if you don't love Shakespear. It is excellent practice if you have to read Shakespeare for school. It has every element that makes Shakespeare so wonderful. Read it now!