Love and Death

     In class we read Othello and during the reading, I could not help but wonder why many of Shakespeare’s “love” stories result in so much death (I mean my sample size is small because I’ve only read Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Othello). 

In Romeo and Juliet, it is the love that they have for each other that blinds them to reality. It is love that causes Romeo to kill himself because he thinks Juliet is dead and can’t bear to live without her. Then Juliet does the same and both of them end up dead over people that they met like a week ago. 

A story about jealousy and deceit that led to a husband strangling his wife to death. His intense love for his wife and his own insecurity leads to both of their deaths. Also, it is Desdomona’s love and devotion to her husband that makes her go to her bed even after Othello calls her a whore. Unlike Romeo and Juliet however, this is a fully married couple who truly “loved” each other. 

What does this say about Shakespeare’s relationship with love? I think Shakespeare is trying to tell us that love makes us do irrational things and sometimes loving someone too much is not a good thing. It is no coincidence that the characters that loved the most were the ones that ended up dying.

I think the sassy gay friend videos really puts this into perspective and how irrational some of the decisions that characters made. I really like how the videos both showed how comical these situations were especially for Juliet and Desdomona.