"Whereby Hangs a Tale" : Narrative and the Deconstruction of the Self in Othello
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2010
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Haverford College. Department of English
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Thesis
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
My thesis examines Othello as a text fundamentally concerned with the nature of narrative and story-telling. I argue that while Othello initially sees narrative as a linear system, he is forced to see it as endlessly recursive, wherein brides re-transform to daughters, adults into children, Christians into barbarians. Through a series of techniques I term "anti-narrative," or which might as well as be termed "anti-linear," (such as gossip, repetition, silence, and generalities), Iago constructs a vision of narrative that has no room for Othello's desire for narrative stability. As such the final act represents not a conclusion or closure, but the acceptance that such closure is impossible.