The Treatment of Love in Shakespeare's Othello and Browning's The Laboratory
What can we see about the treatment of love in literature from comparing Shakespeare and Browning?
In Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ and Browning’s ‘The Laboratory’, it is implied that love was the cause of a desire for revenge on and the death of another character. In ‘Othello’, Othello-despite loving her-desires revenge on Desdemona, believing she has been unfaithful, and irrationally decides to kill her: “I will withdraw/To furnish me with some swift means of death/For the fair devil” (III.iii.473-4), whilst in Browning’s poem ‘The Laboratory’, the monologist desires revenge on their lover by poisoning the woman with whom the lover was unfaithful-“And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!” (VI.3). All of these texts have dramatic conclusions as a result of each of the characters’ desires.
The conclusion of Othello, however, shows that the strength of the love between Othello and Desdemona was enough to cause Othello to feel so much remorse that he killed himself after killing her: “O fool, fool, fool!” (V.ii.319).This implies that, despite killing Desdemona, his love for her was enough to make him want to be with her forever-in the end. This contrasts with the negative impression that love inflicts death and instead, portrays that love is very powerful. Just like in ‘Othello’, in ‘The Laboratory’, the motive for death is love. The monologist decides to poison a woman with whom their lover has been unfaithful. This also seems to be quite an irrational action, but, unlike in ‘Othello’, the central character feels no remorse for doing what they are doing, implying they have a different kind of love; possibly a weaker one.
Overall, by comparing the texts of Shakespeare and Browning, we can see that, in literature, love is very often portrayed as being negative: a motive for revenge and the cause of many deaths. In
In Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ and Browning’s ‘The Laboratory’, it is implied that love was the cause of a desire for revenge on and the death of another character. In ‘Othello’, Othello-despite loving her-desires revenge on Desdemona, believing she has been unfaithful, and irrationally decides to kill her: “I will withdraw/To furnish me with some swift means of death/For the fair devil” (III.iii.473-4), whilst in Browning’s poem ‘The Laboratory’, the monologist desires revenge on their lover by poisoning the woman with whom the lover was unfaithful-“And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!” (VI.3). All of these texts have dramatic conclusions as a result of each of the characters’ desires.
The conclusion of Othello, however, shows that the strength of the love between Othello and Desdemona was enough to cause Othello to feel so much remorse that he killed himself after killing her: “O fool, fool, fool!” (V.ii.319).This implies that, despite killing Desdemona, his love for her was enough to make him want to be with her forever-in the end. This contrasts with the negative impression that love inflicts death and instead, portrays that love is very powerful. Just like in ‘Othello’, in ‘The Laboratory’, the motive for death is love. The monologist decides to poison a woman with whom their lover has been unfaithful. This also seems to be quite an irrational action, but, unlike in ‘Othello’, the central character feels no remorse for doing what they are doing, implying they have a different kind of love; possibly a weaker one.
Overall, by comparing the texts of Shakespeare and Browning, we can see that, in literature, love is very often portrayed as being negative: a motive for revenge and the cause of many deaths. In