Othello (Vol. 35) - Jealousy
JEALOUSY
Stephen Reid (essay date 1968)
SOURCE: "Othello's Journey," in American Imago, Vol. 25, No. 3, Fall, 1968, pp. 274-93.
[In the following essay, Reid contends that Othello suffers from a delusional jealousy that springs from "castration anxiety aroused by his marriage to Desdemona."]
Freud's conjectures on the origin and meaning of sexual jealousy1 have been the basis for psychoanalytic explanations of all manifestations of jealousy—real or fictional. His distinctions among three "layers or grades of jealousy" are well known: competitive or normal, projected, and delusional.2 It is the third of these that has attracted the most attention, and it is this "layer" or "grade" of jealousy which has been seen as the source of Othello's unfounded belief in Desdemona's infidelity. Freud's explanation of delusional jealousy is as follows:
It too [like "projected"...
[The entire page is 14823 words long]
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