Dr. White discusses sentimentality and its characteristics, explaining that it focuses on emotions and wallows in them for their own sake, and pointing out that true artistry allows one to respond on one’s own, without manipulation. Dickens’ work was touched by sentimentality, he explains, particularly in some of his death scenes. Dr. White discusses some of the episodes of his own life that Dickens put into this work, which was partly autobiographical. David’s influences and hero-figures are examined with their respective influences upon him. Dr. White also gives some time to the character of Mr. Micawber, whom he ranks as one of the three great comic characters of literature. Finally, Dr. White touches upon the effect that Dickens had in changing child labor laws and school conditions, the state of which he dramatized in his novels, thus raising awareness of them.
The story now moves away from Venice, never to return. The characters arrive one by one at Cyprus by sea, having weathered a heavy storm. Nature itself is confused. They assemble here to prepare for battle with the Turks. In Act One, Iago only talks about his plans, but now, in Act Two, away from home, he puts his plans into action. Iago gets Cassio drunk and into a fight, disrupting the wedding night of Othello and Desdemona. Othello breaks up the fight. Cassio is dishonored. To help put him right again with Othello, Iago suggests that he talk with Desdemona to have her plead his case with her husband. He agrees. Iago uses this meeting to plant doubts about Desdemona’s fidelity. Iago has several roles in this play. He is first and foremost, the villain. A purely evil man: evil for the sake of evil. He appears as a fellow well met, but his words hide his real intent. Iago provides the comic relief in the play. He is funny, witty, clever. Audiences for centuries love this character. They recognize him. He reminds us all that we are human. But behind his jokes is a sinister plan of destruction and disorder.
Dr. White discusses Charles Dickens’ great gift for characterization, which extended even to very minor characters. He gives specific examples of this from David Copperfield, including the based-on-life character of Miss Moucher. Next, Dr. White discusses some of the author’s literary devices, including his masterful foreshadowing and the device of having a double perspective from the narrator: David experiences things as a child, and the elder David who is narrating looks back on it as an adult, giving an adult’s perspective. Indeed, Dr. White points out, the novel is somewhat autobiographical, and Dickens in examining David Copperfield’s life examines his own. Useful or important passages of the novel are read and explained. Dr. White discusses the overwhelmingly female world that David is born to, giving him no male figure to look up to. This section ends with a look at the scene in which Copperfield discovers that his mother is going to be remarried to Mr. Murdstone.
Act One of Othello shows the whole world in disorder, and it all begins with a single decision. Desdemona, the beautiful daughter of Brabantio, falls in love with the black Moor Othello. They elope and marry. They do not seek the permission of the father, knowing that he will not allow it. This is the first critical mistake. This decision disrupts a household. This disruption spills onto the streets with near bloodshed, to the senate where the Duke is in need of the services of the mercenary Othello, and thus refuses to admit much less help solve the problem, and the disorder moves to the outside world. The second critical mistake of Othello and Desdemona is their denial of their physical bond to one another and thus deny the fact that they have now become one flesh. This is the very heart of this tragedy. This is a story of fragmentation, of not being whole, and the destruction it causes on individuals and the world. While the love of Othello and Desdemona is pure, it is flawed because of their decisions. Brabantio warns Othello that if his daughter can deceive her own father, she can certainly deceive her husband.
This final act sees action. It opens with the gravediggers talking about Ophelia and if she deserves a Christian burial due to the suspicion surrounding her death. Hamlet enters the graveyard and muses that all intelligence, wit, and action all comes to death, all comes to nothing. The universe is an accident. Life has no meaning. So why do anything in life if it all ends in the nothingness of death? Hamlet is exposing the nihilism of the modern age. Hamlet has sunk to his lowest. A funeral procession enters the graveyard. Hamlet learns that Ophelia has died. He is moved. Something stirs in him. He begins to come to his senses. He loved her. Remember too that Ophelia is the barometer of the mental state of Hamlet. Her innocence speaks to him even from the grave. Hamlet now has full charge of his senses; he knows what he must do. He must clean up the corruption in the court of Denmark. He must kill King Claudius who has killed his father, made a whore of his mother and taken his rightful crown from him. Hamlet is about to become a man of action. His life now has meaning.
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is the second of the four great tragedies of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.) These are the first great tragedies since the Greeks. Only a man faced with conflict and doubt with the skill to write could write them. Shakespeare was in his dark and troubled time of life when he wrote these plays. Tragedy is a drama in which the principle conflict is between the hero and the metaphysical powers, the universe itself. The metaphysical forces win. The hero is broken, crushed, destroyed, through his own doing. The fall of the hero is not just a personal loss: when the hero falls, many fall with him. The tragedy of the individual becomes large. The warnings are these: if a great man can fall, so can we. We can also be crushed by someone else’s bad choice. Othello is a love tragedy. It is a story about disorder destroying order, about abject evil and its ravages in the world, the misuse of free will. Othello is the hero and Iago the villain. Both are destroyed. The essential thing to understand the play: a man and women in marriage become one flesh.
