in the story of the misguided Moor occurs when Othello makes an important choice—the decision to believe Iago over the trust of his wife. When he accepts the rumors of Cassio and Desdemona as truth, he fulfills another aspect of Aristotle’s tragedy: he makes the moment of choice that decides his ending, deplorable state. He could have chosen to ignore the conniving Iago and retain faith in his wife’s truth of character, but, like the fallen hero, he makes the wrong decision, stating, “All my fond love thus I do blow to Heaven.” (III, iii, 505). As Aristotle predicts, it is this fateful, irrevocable choice that single-handedly decides his undesired end. Aristotle’s final observation was that in every great tragedy, the tragic hero would have a moment of realization after they had already made their unchangeable mistake. For Othello, this moment comes after he kills Desdemona. Emilia, wife of Iago, reveals to Othello that her husband’s words to him had been all a falsehood, that Desdemona had, in fact, been faithful. At this moment of truth, Othello is beside himself, and so chooses to take his own life, now seemingly worthless in the destruction he had himself caused.Every tragedy has its own individual characteristics, but they all have some major points in common. These main themes were outlined by a man named Aristotle, author of the book Poetics. The ideas propounded in his work were adopted by later writers, much like Shakespeare and other playwrights. It is this common thread that binds together all works of this type, modern and classic....
