What are the differences in the characterizations of Oedipus in Oedipus Rex and Othello in Othello?

Conflict, or agon, and its resolution is the central
aspect of Western theater. The conflicts of the plays are timeless but rooted in
specific cultures: The power of the gods in ancient Greece (Oedipus), and the new
mercantile order of the English Renaissance
(Othello).

Oedipus represents the burgeoning theme of Greek
humanism: the impulse of the great individual who rises above the community. In this
way, the Oedipus is a parable about the nature of human progress, revealed in metaphors
that concentrate on human pursuits like sailing and agriculture. Oedipus is a story in
which the protagonist goes backward, not forward, in time. The hero realizes that,
rather than the solution to the problem, he is the cause of the plague that threatens
Thebes. Though guided by the oracle, Oedipus is also an agent of free will. He
prescribes and enacts his own punishment. He converts his heinous crimes—dictated by
fate--into a gesture of personal responsibility. His very search for the truth is itself
an act of free will.

Though African—and, as such, suspect
as an outsider—Othello is a trusted defender of Christian culture. Othello’s noble deeds
in battle recall the exploits of the classical hero. Othello embodies the aristocratic
ideals of Elizabethan England: honesty, friendship, fidelity, chivalric love. But in
light of contemporary values, does such a figure seem noble—or naïve?  Though of noble
bearing, Othello is a black hero. As an outsider marked by his race, he is a vulnerable
man in Renaissance Europe, a continent already engaged in the African slave trade.
Othello is tainted by his origins in yet another way, his own mother a practitioner of
pagan witchcraft. Othello the outsider uses the “witchcraft” of language to seduce
Desdemona. Language, as witchcraft, has many uses. While Othello employs words as a
means of seduction, Iago engages them as a potent
poison.

While Oedipus concerns the establishment of law
after a transgression fated by the oracle, Othello depicts a man who descends to
brutality from the advice of a trusted friend. Like Sophocles, Shakespeare believes the
tragic hero must ultimately come to recognize his failure.