Michael Hoffman Final Essay

English Lapolla June 1st, 2010

The Distortion of Honor

Throughout Shakespeare s Othello and Homer s Odyssey a single theme drove most of the characters decisions and actions, honor. Honor was perceived in two ways, being honorable for ones own personal gain and for the attention of others or to be honorable for the sake of goodness and sense of accomplishment within ones self. Michael Cassio is seen as an honorable man, he has done no wrong, committed no crime, and lives for his reputation, however he only cares for being honorable because it improves his stature amongst the powerful Venetian men that are present within Othello. On the other hand, the character Othello as well as the Gods and protagonists of The Odyssey use honor for the betterment of themselves and for reasons beyond themselves, not for garnering the attention of others. Dictionary.com defines honor as honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions in these regards the honor achieved by people such as Michael Cassio is not actually honor (at least not as defined by the definition of the word.) All Cassio is achieving is reputation, simply gaining credit in the eyes of his colleagues and superiors through the appearance of being honorable. He wishes to gain this reputation through honor because of his desire that every person has which is to leave a lasting impression on the Earth, to have his name remembered forever, to have an immortal part of [himself] (Othello II.3.264) However, even though Cassio s intentions and cause for his honorable deeds are not pure, they still lead

him to do many things that bettered the lives of others, implying the question, What matters more the actions or the intentions? If someone does bad deeds under the guise of good intentions does that make those deeds acceptable? Vice versa, if one does good deeds while having bad intentions do those deeds deserve to be hailed as honorable? The road to hell is carved with good intentions. This common saying relates much to the actions of Othello. He believed that his killing of Desdemona was an honorable murder, for naught did [he] do [it] in hate, but all in honor (V.2) Othello believes that [Desdemona] must die, else she ll betray more men. (V.2.6) In his own twisted mind Othello believed that the only way to keep his honor and protect others from Desdemona s deceiving ways was to kill her. He only wanted to do what he was felt was right. Othello s intentions were pure as could be, while his actions were deserving of hell. Othello s position as the moor is one that naturally garners much respect and honor, with all his self-taken responsibilities of honor how could Othello let someone live whom he truly thought would betray more men? A man who appears honorable in the eyes of society would never harm a woman, however Othello honorably murders Desdemona, implying that Othello is acting out of his need to act honorable for the greater good of man and not just to appear honorable to society Homer s Telemachus is a boy trying to be a man, one of his duties as a man is to bring honor to his family by being brave and therefore raising his popularity in the brutal ladder of society s expectations. Through his rugged manliness and brave

talk, all of the characters of The Odyssey believe Telemachus to be an honorable man, however he treats honor the same way Cassio does, by using it to simply increase his public popularity and leave a more lasting impression on the Earth. Telemachus has a goal, to find his father, to accomplish this goal he must first get help from others, which he can not do unless he has honorable reputation, implying that being honorable can be used as a tool to get farther in life accomplish ones goals. The idea of honor has been used as an excuse to commit heinous crimes as well as to help many people, implying that honor has been greatly distorted from its original meaning. Honor is supposed to be a code by which all people live by, one that transcends the confines of gender and race, however it is being twisted to fit the individual needs of certain characters. One such character is Othello, who convinced himself that the only honorable thing to do when he found of wife s supposed infidelity was to kill her, however he was not motivated by honor alone but also by revenge, demonstrating how honor can be twisted into something evil. Honor is allimportant, without honor the whole world would go to hell because there would be no goodness left, and everyone would simply be looking out for their own backs and not worrying for the sakes of others.