Misplaced Pages

#992007

90-536: Mohammad Parvez (known professionally as Gangua ) is a Bangladeshi film actor who is known for his role as villain in the cinema of Bangladesh . Gangua was born in Bogra . He initially starred on the stage. Later in 1978, he was introduced in the Bangladeshi film industry by actor Jashim . His stage name Gangua was given by Jashim. Early in his career, he used to play small roles. In 1992, he played an important role for

180-578: A handkerchief (the first gift given to her by Othello), Emilia finds it and gives it to Iago at his request, unaware of what he plans to do with it. Othello appears and, then being convinced by Iago of his wife's unfaithfulness with his captain, vows with Iago for the death of Desdemona and Cassio, after which he makes Iago his lieutenant. Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio's lodgings, then tells Othello to watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca,

270-418: A melodramatic manner, with mustache-twirling, eye-rolling , leering , cackling , and hand-rubbing . In 1895, Thomas Edison and Alfred Clark made The Execution of Mary Stuart depicting Mary, Queen of Scots being decapitated. It describes neither Mary nor her executioner as villains (though at the time, it was deemed so realistic that audience members believed an actual woman had been beheaded in

360-572: A Barbary horse"; "the sooty bosom of such a thing as thou" – as do things Othello says of himself: "haply for I am black"; or "begrimed and black as mine own face". There is critical divide over Othello's ethnic origin. A " Moor " broadly refers to someone from northwest Africa, especially if Muslim, but in Shakespeare's England "Moor" was used with broader connotations: sometimes referring to Africans of all regions, sometimes to Arabic or Islamic peoples beyond Africa, such as those of Turkey and

450-419: A Christian and a black African, Othello is (as scholar Tom McAlindon puts it) both of, and not of, Venice. And actor Paul Robeson considered Othello's colour as essentially secondary, as a way of emphasizing his cultural difference and consequent vulnerability in a society he does not fully understand. In the world of the play itself, Jyotsna Singh argues that Brabantio's – and others' – objection to Othello,

540-414: A Moor from Barbary, Leo said of his own people "they are so credulous they will beleeue matters impossible, which are told them" and "no nation in the world is so subject vnto iealousie; for they will rather [lose] their liues than put vp any disgrace in the behalfe of their women" – both traits seen in Shakespeare's Othello. And from Leo's own life story Shakespeare took a well-born, educated African finding

630-460: A convincing villain must be given a characterization that provides a motive for doing wrong, as well as being a worthy adversary to the hero. As put by film critic Roger Ebert : "Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph." The actor Tod Slaughter typically portrayed villainous characters on both stage and screen in

720-433: A decorated and respected general, as a suitable husband for Desdemona, a senator's daughter, only makes sense in racist terms: reinforced by the bestial imagery used by Iago in delivering the news. The racist slurs used by Iago, Roderigo and Brabantio in the play suggest that Shakespeare conceived of Othello as a black African: "thicklips"; "an old black ram is tupping your white ewe"; "you'll have your daughter covered with

810-469: A fight. Montano tries to calm down an angry and drunk Cassio. This leads to their fighting one another and Montano's being injured. Othello arrives and questions the men as to what happened. Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips him of his rank. Cassio, distraught, is then persuaded by Iago to ask Desdemona to persuade her husband to reinstate him. Iago persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona's relationship. When Desdemona drops

900-523: A hideous monster who destroyed his family out of spite . Shakespeare also ensured that Iago in Othello and Antonio in The Tempest were completely void of redeeming traits. In an analysis of Russian fairy tales , Vladimir Propp concluded that the majority of stories had only eight " dramatis personae ", one being the villain. This analysis has been widely applied to non-Russian tales. The actions within

990-404: A less capable soldier than himself. Iago tells Roderigo that he plans to exploit Othello for his own advantage and convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio and tell him about his daughter's elopement . Meanwhile, Iago sneaks away to find Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him. Brabantio, provoked by Roderigo, is enraged and seeks to confront Othello, but he finds Othello accompanied by

SECTION 10

#1732876562993

1080-766: A local courtesan, but whispers her name so quietly that Othello believes the two men are talking about Desdemona. Later, Bianca accuses Cassio of giving her a second-hand gift which he had received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona. Enraged and hurt, Othello resolves to kill his wife and tells Iago to kill Cassio. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable and strikes her in front of visiting Venetian nobles. Meanwhile, Roderigo complains that he has received no results from Iago in return for his money and efforts to win Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio. Roderigo unsuccessfully attacks Cassio in

1170-426: A mohawk, and her nails painted bright red. Her goal throughout the film is to become queen and disrupt the coupling of Ariel and Prince Eric , both of which connect villainy to drag queens , suggesting that there is inherent evil in those who do drag. Villains in fiction commonly function in the dual role of adversary and foil to a story's heroes. In their role as an adversary, the villain serves as an obstacle

1260-488: A more direct way than live-action villains. That their character design is based on caricatures of racist, antisemitic, and/or homophobic stereotypes with exaggerated features. That female animated villains are portrayed in ways that feed into misogynistic ideas and traditional gender roles. Sattar Sharmin and Sanyat Tania have argued that animated villains frequently fall into two categories: women who exhibit societally undesirable traits, or men displaying feminine traits. In

1350-492: A place at the height of a white European power. From Philemon Holland 's translation of Pliny 's Natural History Shakespeare took the references to the Pontic Sea, to Arabian trees with their medicinable gum, and to the "Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders", elements which also featured in the fantastic The Travels of Sir John Mandeville . The terminus ad quem for Othello (that is,

1440-520: A play about race, then its history has made it one. Or, as the Oxford editor Professor Michael Neill summarises it: Anxieties about the treatment of race in Othello are a recurrent feature of both its critical and performance histories: where they once focused on the supposed scandal of miscegenation, they are nowadays more likely to address the play's complicity in racial stereotyping. In plot terms, Othello's race serves to mark him as "other". As both

1530-423: A pure villain. Folklore and fairy tale villains can also play a myriad of roles that can influence or propel a story forward. In fairy tales villains can perform an influential role; for example, a witch who fought the hero and ran away, and who lets the hero follow her, is also performing the task of "guidance" and thus acting as a helper. Propp also proposed another two archetypes of the villain's role within

1620-476: A reputation for being one-dimensional. In modern animation, animated villains that are more significant and fleshed out have become increasingly common as cartoons have begun to be favored by adults. Shows such as Adventure Time , Gravity Falls , and Rick and Morty range from child to adult cartoons, but are all watched by a largely older audience. It is sometimes alleged that villains in animated works, such as Disney movies, often embody stereotypes in

1710-412: A sexual jealousy so intense that it "converts human nature into chaos, and liberates the beast in man ... the animal in man forcing itself into his consciousness in naked grossness, and he writhing before it but powerless to deny it entrance, grasping inarticulate images of pollution, and finding relief only in a bestial thirst for blood." This jealousy is symbolized in the play through animal imagery. In

1800-482: A short film adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . In 1914, Lois Weber made a film of The Merchant of Venice with Phillips Smalley as a villainous Shylock . The 1915 film The Birth of a Nation has "Northern carpetbaggers" inciting black violence as its villains. The 1916 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has a man named Charles Denver as its villain. In the same year, Snow White had Queen Brongomar as

1890-416: A villain's game, but for a noble cause in a way that the audience or other characters can sympathize with. They may be more noble or heroic than an antihero, but the means to achieve their ends are often considered exploitative, immoral, unjust, or simply evil. Characters who fall into this category are often created with the intention of humanizing them, making them more relatable to the reader/viewer by posing

SECTION 20

#1732876562993

1980-523: A villain's sphere were: When a character displays these traits, it is not necessarily tropes specific to the fairy tale genre, but it does imply that the one who performs certain acts to be the villain. The villain, therefore, can appear twice in a story to fulfill certain roles: once in the opening of the story, and a second time as the person sought out by the hero. When a character has only performed actions or displayed traits that coincide with Vladimir Propp's analysis, that character can be identified as

2070-642: A villain. There were also villains in 1960s children's film. For instance, 101 Dalmatians and the 1966 Batman both had villains. The former having Cruella de Vil and the latter being the first time comic book supervillains were adapted to film. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Star Wars films introduced Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine . 1980s films had villains like Khan in Star Trek , John Kreese in The Karate Kid and its sequels, Skynet in

2160-765: A villain. The 1923 film The Ten Commandments has the main character's brother be a villain due to his commitment to breaking all of the Ten Commandments . In 1937, Walt Disney 's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had the Evil Queen as a villain. In 1939, The Wizard of Oz had Wicked Witch of the West as its villain. In the 1940s, serial films about superheroes introduced supervillains as characters like Dr. Dana in Batman . The 1949 film Samson and Delilah has Hedy Lamarr as

2250-724: A warning to young girls not to marry against the wishes of their parents, and that the Italian ladies may learn from me not to wed a man whose nature and habitude of life estrange from us". Similar wording was used in one of the earliest, and most negative, critiques of the play: Thomas Rymer writing in his 1693 A Short View of Tragedy suggested that one of the play's morals was "a caution to all Maidens of Quality how, without their Parents consent, they run away with Blackamoors." Rymer, however, dryly observed that another such moral might be "a warning to all good Wives, that they look well to their Linnen" – as such his comments should be read within

2340-529: A wealthy and dissolute gentleman, complains to his friend Iago, an ensign , that Iago has not told him about the recent secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio, a senator, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. Roderigo is upset because he loves Desdemona and had asked her father, Brabantio, for her hand in marriage, which Brabantio denied him. Iago hates Othello for promoting an aristocrat named Cassio above him, whom Iago considers

2430-459: Is a character who relies on their instincts and ability to cause destruction to achieve their ends. The evil intentions of their actions are often easily identified, as they act without concern for others (or their wellbeing ) or subtlety . The rampaging villain can take the form of a very powerful individual or a rampaging beast but is still one of the more dangerous villain archetypes due to their affinity for destruction. The authority figure

2520-427: Is a devil, but not before the latter stabs Emilia to death in the scuffle. Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that moment on. Lodovico apprehends both Iago and Othello for the murders of Roderigo, Emilia, and Desdemona, but Othello commits suicide. Lodovico appoints Cassio as Othello's successor and exhorts him to punish Iago justly. He then denounces Iago for his actions and leaves to tell

2610-470: Is defeated by their own greed, pride, or arrogance. The traitor is a villain who emphasizes the traits of trickery, manipulation and deception to achieve their goals, which is often to offer or supply information to the protagonist's opposition to halt them on their journey; often in exchange for their own freedom or safety. The traitor's goals are not always evil but the actions they commit to reach their goal can be considered inherently evil. Animation

2700-414: Is driven by an ambiguous motivation or is not driven by an intent to cause evil. Their intentions may coincide with the ideals of a greater good, or even a desire to make the world a better place , but their actions are inherently evil in nature. An anti-villain is the opposite of an antihero. While the antihero often fights on the side of good, but with questionable or selfish motives, the anti-villain plays

2790-434: Is effeminate men, sometimes referred to by subject experts as "sissy villains," where their mannerisms represent stereotypes relating to gay men. Another example is the depiction of masculine women, which emulates drag queens or butch lesbians. Adelia Brown makes a similar allegation about Ursula from The Little Mermaid . Ursula is closely modelled after the famous drag queen " Divine " with her heavy makeup, hair styled in

Gangua - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-619: Is home to several different villains. Winsor McCay in How a Mosquito Operates had a cartoon mosquito torment a human being and in 1925, Walt Disney created Pete as an antagonist for the Alice Comedies with Pete later becoming an antagonist of Mickey Mouse and his friends and the first Disney villain. Fleischer Studios later had Bluto as the antagonist of the Popeye cartoons. Hanna-Barbera created Tom as an antagonist of Jerry . Likewise,

2970-565: Is named – the others are simply called the Moor (the equivalent of Othello), the Ensign (Iago), the Corporal (Cassio) and similar descriptions. In its story the Ensign falls in love with the Moor's wife Disdemona, but her indifference turns his love to hate and in revenge he persuades the Moor that Disdemona has been unfaithful. The Moor and the Ensign murder Disdemona with socks filled with sand, and bring down

3060-432: Is not always the case. As seen often in animated films, female villains are portrayed with "ugly" appearances to contrast the beauty of the protagonist, in turn associating unattractiveness with evil. This paints female villains in a negative light compared to their heroine counterparts, and showcases the duality of the female villain character. The ethical dimension of history poses the problem of judging those who acted in

3150-413: Is one that has already attained a level of command and power but always craves more. They are often driven by their desire for material wealth , distinguished stature or great power and appear as a monarch , corporate climber or other powerful individual. Their end goal is often the total domination of their corporation, nation, or world through mystical means or political manipulation. Often this villain

3240-454: Is supported by similarities to Measure for Measure , another of Shakespeare's plays often dated around 1604, and which, like Othello , draws its plot from Cinthio 's Gli Hecatommithi . This date is also supported by the possibility that Shakespeare may have consulted Richard Knolles ' 1603 The Generall Historie of the Turkes . However, evidence of an earlier date, 1601–1602, is provided by

3330-414: Is the universal term for characters who pose as catalysts for certain ideals that readers or observers find immoral, but the term "villainess" is often used to highlight specific traits that come with their female identity—separating them, in some aspects, from their male counterparts. The use of the female villain (or villainess) is often to highlight the traits that come specifically with the character and

3420-513: Is unambiguously evil. William Shakespeare modelled his archetypical villains as three-dimensional characters and acknowledged the complex nature that villains display in modern literature. For instance, he made Shylock a sympathetic character. However, Shakespeare's incarnations of historical figures were influenced by the propaganda pieces coming from Tudor sources, and his works often showed this bias and discredited their reputation. For example, Shakespeare famously portrayed Richard III as

3510-1081: The Terminator films, Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future films, The Joker in Batman and Dark Helmet in Spaceballs . 1990s films had villains like General Mandible in Antz , Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park , Edgar in Men in Black , Van Pelt in Jumanji , Rameses in The Prince of Egypt , Carrigan in Casper and Shan-Yu in Mulan . The Star Wars prequels also introduced several villains in addition to those

3600-523: The First Folio . Othello has been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both among playgoers and literary critics , since its first performance, spawning numerous stage , screen , and operatic adaptations. Among actors, the roles of Othello, Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia (Iago's wife) are regarded as highly demanding and desirable. Critical attention has focused on the nature of the play's tragedy, its unusual mechanics , its treatment of race , and on

3690-632: The Looney Tunes had villains like Elmer Fudd , Yosemite Sam , Marvin the Martian and Blacque Jacque Shellacque . In 1937, Disney made the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and it had the Evil Queen as its antagonist. Since then, Disney made a lot of animated movies with villains based on fairy tale villains. Disney Villains became a major part of that franchise. Saturday-morning cartoons also had villains like Dick Dastardly , Muttley and Snidely Whiplash . Since then cartoon villains have had

Gangua - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-508: The Middle East , and sometimes to Muslims of any race or location. "I think this play is racist, and I think it is not." Scholar Virginia Vaughan In Shakespeare's main source, Cinthio 's Gli Hecatommithi , the character Disdemona (the equivalent of Shakespeare's Desdemona) says "I know not what to say of the Moor; he used to be all love towards me; but within these few days he has become another man; and much I fear that I shall prove

3870-457: The evil queen and Lady Tremaine , are influenced by jealousy/vanity whereas only 4% of male villains are driven by these same factors. Rather the men, such as Hades and Captain Hook , have motives grounded in wealth and power, giving in to masculine stereotypes and signifying an attachment to the patriarchy . Additionally, in animation there is a history of mothers and grandmothers being posed as

3960-501: The motivations of Iago and his relationship to Othello . Originally performed by white actors in dark makeup , the role of Othello began to be played by black actors in the 19th century. Shakespeare's major source for the play was a novella by Cinthio , the plot of which Shakespeare borrowed and reworked substantially. Though not among Shakespeare's longest plays, it contains two of his four longest roles in Othello and Iago. Roderigo,

4050-470: The "how" and "why" behind their motivations rather than simply creating a one-dimensional character. Because of their motives, many of these types of villains are commonly nicknamed "anti-villains". Othello The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice , often shortened to Othello ( / ɒ ˈ θ ɛ l oʊ / ), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus ,

4140-660: The Duke of Venice's guards, who prevent violence. News has arrived in Venice that the Turks are going to attack Cyprus , and Othello is therefore summoned to advise the senators. Brabantio has no option but to accompany Othello to the Duke's residence, where he accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft . Othello defends himself before the Duke of Venice , Brabantio's kinsmen Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators. Othello explains that, while he

4230-444: The abilities they possess that are exclusive to them. For example, one of the female villain's greatest weapons is her alluring beauty, sexuality or emotional intelligence. The perversion of inherently female traits in storytelling also alludes to the demonic display of the succubus and their affinity for utilizing their beauty as a weapon—a trait utilized by many female villains throughout modern fiction and mythology. However, this

4320-475: The actors must have been performing Othello , at the latest, in the season preceding the bad quarto's publication. Othello was not published in Shakespeare's lifetime. The first published version of the play was a quarto in 1622 (usually abbreviated to "Q"), which was followed a year later by the play's appearance in the First Folio (usually abbreviated to "F"). There are significant differences between

4410-412: The anonymous Arden of Faversham , Marlowe 's Doctor Faustus , and Heywood 's A Woman Killed with Kindness . These also include Shakespeare's own earlier plays Much Ado About Nothing , in which a similar plot was used in a comedy, The Merchant of Venice with its high-born, Moorish, Prince of Morocco, and Titus Andronicus , in which a Moor, Aaron, was a prominent villain, and as such

4500-433: The case of men with feminine traits, this may stem from both a homophobic and misogynistic point of view which is further discussed below. As for female villains who are portrayed with "displeasing" characteristics, not only are they crafted to look unattractive, but their motivations for becoming evil are rooted in very trivial matters. Debra Bradley's survey on Disney films discovered that 28% of female villains, such as

4590-416: The ceiling of her bedchamber to make it appear an accident. The story continues until the Ensign is tortured to death for unrelated reasons and the Moor is killed by Disdemona's family. Shakespeare's direct sources for the story do not include any threat of warfare: it seems to have been Shakespeare's innovation to set the story at the time of a threatened Turkish invasion of Cyprus – apparently fixing it in

SECTION 50

#1732876562993

4680-666: The connotations worsened, so that the modern word villain is no unpolished villager, but is instead (among other things) a deliberate scoundrel or criminal. At the same time, the mediaeval expression "vilein" or "vilain" is closely influenced by the word "vile", referring to something wicked or worthless. As from the late 13th century, vile meant "morally repugnant; morally flawed, corrupt, wicked; of no value; of inferior quality; disgusting, foul, ugly; degrading, humiliating; of low estate, without worldly honor or esteem", from Anglo-French ville , Old French vil , from Latin vilis "cheap, worthless, of low value". In classical literature,

4770-553: The context of his overarching criticism of the play, as unrealistic and lacking in obvious moral conclusions. "For this noble lady, who regarded the mind more than the features of men, with a singularity rather to be admired than imitated, had chosen for the object of her affections a Moor, a black." Othello in Tales from Shakespeare (1807) by Charles and Mary Lamb In the nineteenth century, such well-known writers as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb questioned whether

4860-446: The early acts of the play it is Iago who mentions ass, daws, flies, ram, jennet, guinea-hen, baboon, wild-cat, snipe, monkeys, monster and wolves. But from the third act onwards Othello catches this line of imagery from Iago as his irrational jealousy takes hold. The same occurs with "diabolical" imagery (i.e. images of hell and devils) of which Iago uses 14 of his 16 diabolical images in the first two acts, yet Othello uses 25 of his 26 in

4950-502: The embodiment of national political cultures that may collude or collide against one another. The usage of villain to describe a historical figure dates back to Tudor propaganda, pieces of which ended up influencing William Shakespeare 's portrayal of Richard III as a spiteful and hunchback tyrant . The sympathetic villain or anti-villain is one with the typical traits of a villainous character but differs in their motivations . Their intention to cause chaos or commit evil actions

5040-705: The events of 1570 . Those historical events would however have been well known to Shakespeare's original audience, who would therefore have been aware that – contrary to the action of the play – the Turks took Cyprus, and still held it. Scholars have identified many other influences on Othello : things which are not themselves sources but whose impact on Shakespeare can be identified in the play: these include Virgil 's Aeneid , Ovid 's Metamorphoses , both The Merchant's Tale and The Miller's Tale from Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , Geoffrey Fenton 's Certaine Tragicall Discourses , Kyd 's The Spanish Tragedy , George Peele 's The Battle of Alcazar ,

5130-400: The false donor will pose as a benevolent figure or influence on the protagonist (or those associated with them) to present them with a deal. The deal will present a short-term solution or benefit for whoever accepts it and, in return, benefit the villain in the long term. During the story's climax, the hero often has to find a way to rectify the agreement in order to defeat the villain or achieve

5220-417: The film Spartacus had Marcus Licinius Crassus as its villain. In the same year, the film Psycho had Norman Bates as a villainous protagonist. The 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird , like the book, had Bob Ewell as its villain. Other 1960s films like The Guns of Navarone and The Great Escape had Nazis as their villains. Beginning with Dr. No in 1962, every James Bond film has had

5310-446: The first time in the film 'Mustan Raja' directed by Dewan Nazrul. He acted in more than 700 films. His latest movie Rajababu - The Power was released in 2015. Villain The villain's structural purpose is to serve as the opposite to the hero character, and their motives or evil actions drive a plot along. In contrast to the hero, who is defined by feats of ingenuity and bravery and

5400-739: The franchise already had. Early 2000s films like the Spider-Man trilogy , The Dark Knight Trilogy , the Harry Potter films, The Lord of the Rings films and Avatar all had villains like, Green Goblin , Two-Face , Lord Voldemort , Saruman and Miles Quaritch . In the 2010s, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe have had several notable supervillains such as Thanos and General Zod . The term villain

5490-401: The happy ending. Similarly, the devil archetype is one that also makes an offer to the protagonist (or someone associated with them) and appeals to their needs and desires. However, the devil archetype does not hide their intentions from the protagonist. The subsequent story often follows the protagonist's journey to try and annul the agreement before any damage can be done. The beast

SECTION 60

#1732876562993

5580-424: The hero must struggle to overcome. In their role as a foil, they exemplify characteristics that are diametrically opposed to those of the hero, creating a contrast distinguishing heroic traits from villainous ones. Other have pointed out that many acts of villains have a hint of wish-fulfillment, which makes some readers or viewers identify with them as characters more strongly than with the heroes. Because of this,

5670-505: The jealousy's object, snatching at ambiguities to ease the mind, dread of vulgar ridicule, and a spirit of vindictiveness. Ultimately, Othello becomes persuaded that his honour is tarnished by his wife's unfaithfulness and can only be restored through Desdemona's and Cassio's deaths. And this – a code of behaviour no longer considered valid – is one reason why modern critics rarely regard Othello among Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. As Ben Okri has said: If Othello did not begin as

5760-508: The kind of jealousy Othello suffers, or to deny it as a motive (for example, those who claim that in Russia between 1945 and 1957 only one actor portrayed Othello as obsessed by jealousy). In fact jealousy is a wide-ranging emotion and encompasses the spectrum from lust to spiritual disillusionment within which Othello's obsession must fall. And he displays many accepted aspects of jealousy: an eagerness to snatch at proofs, indulging degrading images of

5850-465: The last three acts. Not only Othello, but also Iago is consumed by jealousy: his is a kind of envy, which contemporary scholar Francis Bacon called "the vilest affection, and the most depraved; for which cause, it is the proper attribute of the Devil... As it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly, and in the dark; and to the prejudice of good things." Sometimes critics have struggled to define

5940-512: The latest year in which the play could have been written) is 1604, since a performance of the play in that year is mentioned in the accounts book of Sir Edmund Tilney , then Master of the Revels . A terminus a quo (i.e. the earliest year in which it could have been written) is given by the fact that one of its sources, Holland 's translation of Pliny 's Natural History , was published in 1601. Within this range, scholars have tended to date

6030-460: The making of that film.) In 1896, Georges Méliès made a horror film titled The House of the Devil which had The Devil as an antagonist. Edison's The Great Train Robbery , released in 1903 had the bandits who rob the train as its villains. In 1909, there was a feature length adaptation of Les Misérables with Javert as a villain and in 1910, Otis Turner had a Wicked Witch as the villain of

6120-759: The motherly stereotypes in their villains. Other female villains are portrayed as hyper-sexual and powerful beings that are used to juxtapose the beauty or physical characteristics of the heroine ; for example, the Lady Tremaine and stepsisters in Cinderella . Male villains also hold several traits that are characteristically feminine. Characters like Jafar ( Aladdin ) and Hades ( Hercules ) have features such as shaded eyelids and accentuated facial features, similar to those typically associated with femininity. Zachary Doiron has argued that animated villains are based on homophobic stereotypes. As an example, he brings up

6210-425: The narrative forward and influence the hero's journey. These, while not as rounded as those that appear in other forms of literature, are what is known as archetypes . The archetypal villain is a common occurrence within the genre and come under different categories that have different influences on the protagonist and the narrative. The false donor is a villain who utilises trickery to achieve their ends. Often

6300-434: The narrative through another character. The legacy of the villain is often transferred through that of bloodlines (family) or a devoted follower. For example, if a dragon played the role of a villain but was killed by the hero, another character (such as the dragon's sister) might take on the legacy of the previous villain and pursue the hero out of revenge. The fairy tale genre utilises villains as key components to push

6390-532: The narrative, in which they can portray themselves as villainous in a more general sense. The first is the false hero : This character is always villainous, presenting a false claim to be the hero that must be rebutted for the happy ending . Examples of characters who display this trait, and interfere with the success of a tale's hero, are the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella who chopped off parts of their feet to fit in

6480-571: The others what has happened. Shakespeare's primary source for the plot was the story of a Moorish Captain (third decade, story seven) in Gli Hecatommithi by Cinthio (Giovanni Battista Giraldi), a collection of one hundred novellas about love, grouped into ten "decades" by theme. The third decade deals with marital infidelity. Of Cinthio's characters, only Disdemona (the equivalent of Shakespeare's Desdemona – her name means "ill-omened" in Italian)

6570-741: The past, and at times, tempts scholars and historians to construct a world of black and white in which the terms "hero" and "villain" are used arbitrary and with the pass of time become interchangeable. These binaries of course are reflected to varying degrees in endless movies, novels, and other fictional and non-fictional narratives. As processes of globalization connect the world, cultures with different historical trajectories and political traditions will need to find ways to work together not only economically, but also politically. In this evolving framework of globalization, tradition, according to political theorists like Edmund Burke , historical figures perceived and evaluated as either positive or negative become

6660-553: The play 1603–1604, within the reign of James I , since the play appears to have elements designed to appeal to the new king, who had written a poem about the defeat of the Turkish navy at Lepanto , and to the new queen, Anne of Denmark , in whose circle there was an interest in the blackface exoticism also reflected in Ben Jonson 's The Masque of Blackness , in which the queen and her ladies appeared as "daughters of Niger". That dating

6750-435: The play could even be called a "true tragedy" when it dramatized the inviolable taboo of a white woman in a relationship with a black man. Coleridge, writing in 1818, argued that Othello could not have been conceived as black: "Can we imagine [Shakespeare] so utterly ignorant as to make a barbarous negro plead royal birth, - at a time, too, when negroes were not known except as slaves? ... and most surely as an English audience

6840-472: The play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulated by his ensign , Iago , into suspecting his wife Desdemona of infidelity. Othello is widely considered one of Shakespeare's greatest works and is usually classified among his major tragedies alongside Macbeth , King Lear , and Hamlet . Unpublished in the author's life, the play survives in one quarto edition from 1622 and in

6930-562: The plot. Iago then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to kill Cassio. Othello confronts a sleeping Desdemona. She denies being unfaithful, but he smothers her. Emilia arrives, and Desdemona defends her husband before dying, and Othello accuses Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The former governor Montano arrives with Gratiano and Iago. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what Iago has done, and she exposes him. Othello, belatedly realising Desdemona's innocence, stabs Iago (but not fatally), saying that Iago

7020-512: The pursuit of justice and the greater good, a villain is often defined by their acts of selfishness, evilness, arrogance, cruelty, and cunning , displaying immoral behavior that can oppose or pervert justice. The term villain first came into English from the Anglo-French and Old French vilain , which in turn derives from the Late Latin word villanus ,. This refers to those bound to

7110-604: The room, takes note of Brabantio's remark. By order of the Duke, Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of Cyprus , accompanied by his new wife, his new lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago, and Iago's wife, Emilia, as Desdemona's attendant. The party arrives in Cyprus to find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Othello orders a general celebration and leaves to consummate his marriage with Desdemona. In his absence, Iago gets Cassio drunk, and then persuades Roderigo to draw Cassio into

7200-434: The shoe. Another role for the villain would be the dispatcher, who sends the hero on their quest . At the beginning of the story, their request may appear benevolent or innocent, but the dispatcher's real intentions might be to send the hero on a journey in the hopes of being rid of them. The roles and influence that villains can have over a narrative can also be transferred to other characters – to continue their role in

7290-433: The so-called bad quarto of Shakespeare's play Hamlet , published in 1603. The theory is that the bad quarto is a memorial reconstruction of Hamlet , made by some of its actors: so where there are unintentional echoes of Othello in the bad quarto (for example "to my vnfolding / Lend thy listning eare" in the bad quarto and "To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear" in Othello – and a number of others) it suggests that

7380-515: The soil of the villa , who worked on the equivalent of a modern estate in Late Antiquity , in Italy or Gaul . Vilain later shifted to villein , which referred to a person of less than knightly status, implying a lack of chivalry and courtesy . All actions that were unchivalrous or evil (such as treachery or rape ) eventually became part of the identity of a villain in the modern sense of

7470-402: The street after Cassio leaves Bianca's lodgings, as Cassio wounds Roderigo. During the scuffle, Iago comes from behind Cassio and badly cuts his leg. In the darkness, Iago manages to hide his identity, and when Lodovico and Gratiano hear Cassio's cries for help, Iago joins them. When Cassio identifies Roderigo as one of his attackers, Iago secretly stabs Roderigo to death to stop him from revealing

7560-588: The two early editions, the most prominent of which are: There is no scholarly consensus to account for the differences between Q and F: As the Oxford Shakespeare editor Michael Neill summarises things: "The textual mystery of Othello is unlikely ever to be resolved to general satisfaction." "O beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on." Iago The influential early twentieth-century Shakespeare critic A. C. Bradley defined Othello's tragic flaw as

7650-400: The villain character is not always the same as those that appear in modern and postmodern incarnations, as the lines of morality are often blurred to imply a sense of ambiguity or affected by historical context and cultural ideas. Often the delineation of heroes and villains in such literature is left unclear. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions to this such as Grendel from Beowulf who

7740-498: The villainous Delilah and George Sanders as the villainous Prince of Gaza . In 1953, Byron Haskin made a film of The War of the Worlds . Like the book, it has Martians as villains. Cecil B. DeMille 's 1956 remake of The Ten Commandments had two main villains. Ramesses II , played by Yul Brynner and Dathan played by Edward G. Robinson . (It also had Nefertari be a Lady Macbeth figure egging Ramesses on.) In 1960,

7830-483: The villains of many stories. Neil Gaiman 's Coraline presents this phenomenon through the idea of the other-mother. In Coraline , the Other Mother is a loving, caring parent who welcomes Coraline to a new life, helping in the face of troubles back home. By glorifying this other mother, the story paints Coraline's real mother as negligent, in turn causing her to be the villain of the story. Disney films also take on

7920-482: The word. Additionally, villein came into use as a term of abuse and eventually took on its modern meaning. The landed aristocracy of mediaeval Europe used politically and linguistically the Middle English descendant of villanus meaning "villager" (styled as vilain or vilein ) with the meaning "a person of uncouth mind and manners". As the common equating of manners with morals gained in strength and currency,

8010-693: Was a forerunner of both Othello and Iago. One such influence is not a literary work at all. In 1600, London was visited for "half a year" by the Moorish ambassador of the King of Barbary, whose entourage caused a stir in the city. Shakespeare's company is known to have played at court during the time of the visit, and so would have encountered the foreign visitors at first hand. Among Shakespeare's non-fiction, or partly-fictionalised, sources were Gasparo Contarini 's Commonwealth and Government of Venice and Leo Africanus 's A Geographical Historie of Africa . Himself

8100-423: Was invited to Brabantio's home, Desdemona became enamoured of him for the sad and compelling stories he told of his life before Venice, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is satisfied once Desdemona confirms that she loves Othello, but Brabantio leaves, saying that Desdemona will betray Othello: "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. She has deceived her father, and may thee" (Act I, Sc 3). Iago, still in

#992007