Napoleon And Othello example essay topic

Responsive Writing: Othello Act 3 Only a Handkerchief, But... In The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice, a small and seemingly unimportant detail leads to Othello's eventual demise. Desdemona's handkerchief is lost and Othello sees it in Cassio's hands. Over the centuries, many small details and trivialities have altered major events.

During the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century at the battle of Waterloo, a strong unit of cavalry was misdirected into a pit where they were scattered and killed. The handkerchief is the symbol of Othello's love for Desdemona. It is the first gift that he gave her when they were courting and he sees it as something very important. The story of the origin of the handkerchief is very important because Othello claims that it has "magic in the web of it" (3.4. 71).

Othello also claims that it was his mother's and that she used it to capture his father's love. It seems that this is the first time that Desdemona has heard this and she is very surprised and bewildered. She says", Then would to God that I had never seen't!" Which shows that she did not know of this before and that this is the first time that Othello has told her this story. It is very interesting that Othello chooses this moment to tell her the story of the handkerchief and it makes the reader wonder whether the story is true. Othello is telling her this so that she is afraid of the consequences of what she has done. He may have fabricated the story to make her afraid and make her confess to what he thinks she has done.

The situation with the handkerchief is in itself trivial but it plays a big part in the downfall of Othello. Upon seeing the handkerchief in Cassio's hands, Othello is convinced that Desdemona is cuckolding him. Othello believes that if his wife is cheating on him then his whole career is ruined. He believes that he will be demoted from his position as general and outcast from Venetian society. All of his doubts and suspicions are, in his mind, confirmed by the fact that the handkerchief is missing. The battle of Waterloo was the decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars.

The story goes that a unit of elite French heavy cavalry was misdirected into a pit. A local farmer misled the leader of the charge into a road sunken by the rain. The road had formed a pit known now as the pit of Oha in. The cavalry charged into the ditch and those who survived the fall fled the counter attacking Englishmen. This event was one of the events that won the battle of Waterloo for the English and therefore contributed to Napoleon's demise. This trivial, seemingly unimportant detail was one of the factors that led to Napoleon's defeat.

Both these situations involve a trivial detail which contributes to two similar character's demises. The loss of the handkerchief is the trivial matter for Othello and the misdirection of the troops is the trivial matter for Napoleon. Napoleon and Othello were both generals and they met similar fates in their careers. The work of one single person helped the downfall of both of these men. Iago has fabricated a whole story to prove to Othello that Desdemona is dishonest. In Napoleon's case, it is the work of the single villager who may or may not have realised what he had done.

The handkerchief was very important to Othello and the fact that it was lost confirms his suspicions against Desdemona. We can see that real life situations can be affected by trivial matters using the example of the battle of Waterloo for Napoleon. The two situations have many similarities and parallels showing that Shakespeare uses realities in his writing..