Psychoanalytic Criticsm On Othello Film

PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICSM ON OTHELLO FILM

A. INTRODUCTION
Literature is an interesting thing to analyse. There are a lot of works of literature,
such as short story, novel, drama, and poetry. One of them is film. Just like the other
literary works, film has setting, character, and meaning. In analysing film, we can
use some approaches. They are structuralism, feminism, postcolonialism, and pshyco
analysis. In this study, i analyse the film trough phsycoanalytic criticsm. In order to
do that, we have to interpret characters’ behaviour and personality in film. And it is
not an easy thing to do, because we are obligated to interpret the characters’
performance. How they behave, why they behave as they do, how they think, and
what they are like together.
It is advisable, we start analyse with the personality of the characters. We
have to be able to recognize them well in details. We can know the personality of
characters by focusing on both concious and unconcious mind of the characters, the
dialogue to other character, not to mention the monologue of characters. We can find
a lot monologues in Othello film. Kaplan and Kloss in Wright 1984, p.46 stated that
“Fictional characters are representations of life and, as such, can be only
understood, if we assume they are real. And this assumption allows us to
unconcious motivation(s) by the same procedure that the traditional critic
uses toassign conscious ones.”

Based on the statement, we can conclude that author of lyterary works

create the different characteristics with various personalities. The authors create
differrent characteristics with their uniqueness based on their observation of the
surroundings.
In Othello film “Iago” character is interesting to discuss. He is the one who is
responsible to the flow of the story. He makes chaos with his falsehood. He is
personality which full of falsity, greed, and selfish. There are so manny actions
performed by “Iago”.
B. LITERARY REVIEW
In this study, i use Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis to analyse the
personality development by “Iago” character. Psychoanalysis is a part of study
area of psychological literature. Wright stated that, there are three main concepts
of psycoanalytic theory: the model of psyche, the concept of repression, and the
role of sexual instincts (1984, p.2). below are the explanation.
1. The Model of Psyche

Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in
Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical
constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described.
According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated
instinctual trends. In a simple, we can say that id is the instinctual unconcious
where pleasure principle exist. For example, i have a dream to have a car. The ego
is the organised, realistic part. Ego is the concious portion of human psychology
and generally identifies as the personality. The case of ego is in order to have a
car, i have to spend a lot of money. Therre are always two choices of possibilities.
The right way, find a job or the wrong way, rob bank. While the super-ego plays
the critical and moralising role. The super-ego represents the survival of parental
attitudes in the psyche. There are moral censors in it. It is the source of guilt felt
by the ego for unconcious instinctual wishes (Wardoyo 2003, p.223-224). In this
case, we prefer to have the right way to bring our dream to reality. If we have
weak super-ego as a censor of our ego, we can’t control our self.
2. The Concept of Repression

The ego finds itself treathened by the pressure of the unacceptable wishes.
By memories of the bitter experiences which are stored in mind, they become
unconcious. This thing bring us to the concept of repression.
A repression which is not released then become a dream. In Freud’s
metapsychology, a dreams have the privileged place. According to Freud, dreams
are psychological delusions of normal people, which give access to the
unconciousness. Dreams have sense and purpose. They are symbols, which have
meaning and can be interpreted. As stated by Wright 1984, p.20.
“The dreamwork transforms the ‘latent’ content of the dream, the ‘forbidden’
dream-thoughts, into the ‘manifest’ dream-stories-what the dreamer remembers.
Latent content goes piece into the dream-stories via a string of associations.”
3. The Role of Sexual Instinct

Freud developed the role of sexual instinct into two areas. They are Oedipus
complex and Electra complex. Oedipus is a perception of the father as a rival in
possessing the mother, while the Electra is the opposite one. Electra complex is
the girl considers the mother as the rival for the father’s love. The way out of them
is provided by the fears of the castration comlex (Wright 1984, p.14-15).
C. DISCUSSION
1. GENERALPICTURE OF “Iego” CHARACTER
Iego is unexpected character, although what the author shows is all about
Iego falsehood. But what Iego did is beyond the imagination of audience. He has
a round character that can be seen from his attitude and behaviour. He seems as a
nice and honest person. Othello describing him as a man of honesty and trust. In
fact, he is a big fat liar. What he say is different witrh the truth.
Iego is presented as a selfish,tricky, and ambitious person. He does
everything to get what he wants. He utilises the people who trust him much to get
his dream. He has a friend named Roderigo who love Desdemona. Iego utilise
Roderigo to make chaos and to bring a lot of money to have Desdemona love. He
tricks Roderigo to attack Cassio. He told to Roderigo that Cassio and Desdemona
love each other. Even though it is untrue. He deceive Cassio. He tells the lie
which makes Othello feels jealous.
To convince Othello about Desdemona’s dishonest, Iego asked his wife to
steal Desdemona’s handkerchief. One day later, Othello sees Cassio with the
Desdemona’s handkerchief in his hand. It brings Othello to his anger. And trust
Iago that Desdemona cheats on him. Then, Othello has a bad plans to murder
Cassio and his wife. In the end, his action brings him to his death. Till this part of
the film, we can see that Iago is the only one who responsible to the death of
Othello, Desdemona, his wife, and Roderigo. His ambitious brings misfortune for
the others.
2. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT OF “Iago” CHARACTER

As stated in background, i will focus on the development of Iago character’s
personality. I will present the three main concepts of psychoanalysis, which exist
in Iago character.
a. ID, EGO, AND SUPEREGO OF Iago CHARACTER

Iago Id is full of greed and animosity. He wants to take Othello dominance.
His ego is trying to realise his Id. He begins to make planning in shatter Othello’s
life. Unfortunately, Othello trust Iago much than his wife who sacrifice her life to
Othello. Iago shows his hatred to Othello and reveal his plan in his monologue,
and his cunning. His ability to twist words easily bring Othello to madness.
In this film, the author presents Iago character as a person who has a weak
moral censor. It means that he doesn’t have super-ego as the mental censor. So, he
legalize all the bad things he has done to get his dream come true. He deceit
Roderigo to give him some money. He deceit Cassio to beg to Desdemona to get
Cassio’s reputation back. He deceit Othello about Desdemona dishonest.
Although, in the end of the story he doesn’t get what he wants. At least, he
succesfully take revenge to Othello.
b. THE CONCEPT OF REPRESSION

He easily deceit people in his surrounding, because he has ability in twist
words. He is pretending to be an honest and nice personality, so that people trust
to him. In the society, he describing as trustworthy person. It can be seen when
Othello prefer to ask him to tell what happen in that night when Cassio hurt
someone.
In this film, i can’t find the latent and manifest of Iago because he can get
his dream. However, he lies to Othello and tells him the dream of Cassio which in
fact oit is untrue. Iago presents the latent and manifest in this story,although not a
real one.
Iago deceit Othello by telling lie that in one night, Cassio have dreamt
Desdemona and told that he hate the moor and at the same time he hold and
overlaped Iago body, and calling Desdemona. Othello thinks that both his wife
and Cassio have been cheated on him. he thinks that what have dreamt and told by
Cassio is something true. He get anger and bring him to his madeness.
c. The Role of Sexual Instinct

The author of the film doesn’t tell anything about the presence of parents.
The only father presents in this film is the father of Desdemona. Desdemona
respects to his father. Although she deceit her father by married with the black
people. Still, we can see how she loves his father, and be thankful to his father.
Desdemona tries to find the picture of ideal figure from her father. The one who
able to give her love, and the one who respected and responsible to her life.this
case called Electra complex.
D. CONCLUSION
From the previous analysis, we can draw conclusion that Iago is the
character who has a lot of personal conflict, and he is the complex character. His
Id, ego, and superego bring him to bad luck. He is completely fulfill his dream.
He doesn’t have a figure of mom.
The personality development of “Iago” character, which derives from the
analysis of the main concept existed in psychoanlytic theory, shows that he is
unsuccessful in finding his self-existence.
PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICSM ON OTHELLO FILM
A paper
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for Literary Appreciation
Subject
by
Wening Hesti A.
2201407007
Rombel 8
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY
2010

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PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICSM ON OTHELLO FILM

Based on the statement, we can conclude that author of lyterary works

1. The Model of Psyche

2. The Concept of Repression

3. The Role of Sexual Instinct

2. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT OF “Iago” CHARACTER

a. ID, EGO, AND SUPEREGO OF Iago CHARACTER

b. THE CONCEPT OF REPRESSION

c. The Role of Sexual Instinct

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY

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