He gloats about the easy in which he can manipulate Roderigo (the fool) into giving him money. Directly after this, you hear of Iago’s feelings towards Othello (the Moor). You learn of Iago’s suspicion about his wife having an affair with Othello. This gains pity from the audience, because you feel that Iago is a man deeply distraught over the idea of his wife cheating on him. Iago then begins to contemplate how he would seek vengeance on Othello and gain his title. Iago plans to use Othello’s trust and opinion of him to his advantage. He speaks about how he will use Cassio as his pawn to lure Othello into believing his wife, Desdemona is being unloyal to him. Iago discloses that Othello’s character is naive and will be easy to manipulate. As his closing statement he states that, with a little help from the devil, his monstrous plan will be a success.
lago then takes Cassio place as Lieutenant and goes on with his second reason for his hate, and that is to get revenge on Othello. He seems to believe that Othello has had an affair with his wife, so this is his reasoning for revenge on Othello. lago says, “Till I am evened with him, wife for wife” (lago Act 2 Scene I Line). lago uses Roderigo in his plan to destroy Othello. lago tricks Othello into believing that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him with Michael Cassio. “He has put the Moor into a jealousy so strong that judgment cannot cure (McCloskey)”. Othello starts to go crazy with jealousy that he starts to have convolutions and seizures because he is so infatuated with the thought of Desdemona cheating with Cassio. Othello wants to kill her so she doesn’t do this to another man. lago says, “Do it not with poison. Strangle her in bed, even the bed she hath contaminated” (lago Act 4 Scene
In Shakespeare’s play Othello, tragedy unfolds on the account of one man’s actions, Iago. He is a twenty eight year old military veteran from Venice. His personality consists of being obsessive, manipulative, relentless, and bold. From the beginning he expressed his hatred towards the Moor, or North African named Othello. Othello is a highly respected general and is also married to the pure Desdemona. The marriage between Othello and Desdemona is destroyed due to Iago’s actions and lies. His actions consist of getting Michael Cassio discharged as lieutenant and convincing the Moor that his wife is cheating on him. The motives Iago has for despising Othello are he passed him over for a promotion to be his lieutenant, instead he chose
Due to the irregularity of an interracial relationship during the sixteenth century, regardless of Lago’s actions, Desdemona and Othello’s relationship would have yielded to the weights of social standards as a result of Othello’s insecurities. These insecurities regard Othello’s darker complexion compared to the rest of Venice. It can already be noted by the audience that Othello has been suffering from these insecurities for quite sometime as Lago easily manages to convince him in deeming Desdemona’s love for him as ungodly. “Othello: And yet, how nature erring from itself— Lago: Ay, there’s the point. As, to be bold with you, Not to affect many proposèd matches of her own clime, complexion, and degree, whereto we see in all things nature tends—Foh!” (Orthello) Othello brings up how good things can become
Othello was a beloved and respected general in the Venetian army, but through a paranoid fit of jealousy he conspires with Iago to kill his wife and her thought to be lover Cassio. While it is clear that the theme of Othello is jealousy, the “green eyed monster”, Othello never has solid proof of the affair. Most of the evidence is circumstantial, but word of mouth through Iago coupled with Othello's extreme jealousy pushes him to desire to murder his wife Desdemona and close friend Cassio. Othello claims to have a profound love for Desdemona but it simply takes one
Othello, the protagonist of the play, is haunted by jealousy as his life takes a turn for the worse. In the beginning of the play, he is married happily to his wife Desdemona. Their marriage took off as he would boast about his brave stories. Othello is a moor and the general of the Venetian army, he has earned great respect throughout Venice from his superiority in battle. Iago who is Othello’s standard bearer, is the antagonist of the play as he manipulates Othello into thinking his wife Desdemona is cheating on him. Cassio is one of Othello’s lieutenants, Othello thinks that Desdemona is having an affair with him. Othello becomes very jealous of the fact that Desdemona could be cheating on him. He is constantly infuriated with the drama and eventually leads to him killing his wife and himself. He ultimately realizes that he was being played and is grieved that Desdemona has always been a loyal wife. Iago is a heinous person that is responsible for creating lies to ruin Othello’s life. Othello let's jealousy rage his temper and causes him to strike Desdemona. The jealousy in Othello causes him to become a tragic hero because he is manipulated into thinking his beloved wife is cheating on him which leads to Othello performing irrational actions and eventually shattering everything in his life.
Shakespeare's point in Othello the Moor is that each individual has a destiny and fate is central in the lives of his characters. Othello, a great warrior, is the lead character and the target for attack from a disgruntled soldier, Iago. Iago plots with the aide of his wife, Emilia, to plant subtle notions of jealously in the case of Othello's expedient marriage to Desdemona. Othello loves Desdemona and the same is true for Othello, but Iago successfully destroys the trust between the couple with a scheme in which Othello is unable to control his jealousy. There are several other characters that Iago uses to set his plan into motion such as Roderigo, Bianca and Cassio. Cassio is not so much a willing participant in the scheme of the play as he is a scapegoat (or object of irrational hostility; Webster's Dictionary, 652) to pin the entire plot on. It is known that Emilia's character becomes crucial to the plot, as she is the most essential character to her husband's crusade to destroy Othello and Desdemona.
determine as to which one will win, so that is why one cannot exist without the other. However, there are some whose emotions are unbalanced, which causes them to near towards one side more than the other one and many times the side a lot of people prefer to lean on is evil. Shakespeare’s play Othellois set in 16thcentury Venice and Cyprus. Othello, a noble black general from the Venetian army has secretly married Desdemona, daughter of Venice senator Brabantio. Othello chooses inexperienced Cassio to be his lieutenant, while he decides to give the ensign position to Iago, a malicious but very experienced man who, with his stealth and knavery, will ultimately ruin almost everyone’s life since for a long time, he was desiring the position of lieutenant just like Cassio. At the end of the play, Othello, Desdemona, Iago’s wife Emilia, and his sidekick Roderigo die due to his revenge against Cassio, for obtaining the position he wanted and Othello, for being the man who he hates the most. The play ends with Iago being told that he will be punished and tortured for his actions. However, despite the fact that Iago is punished at the end of the play for doing all of the malicious things he did, he still manages to wear down Othello’s relationship with Desdemona, get Cassio demoted from his lieutenancy, and cause Othello to show his cowardness by
As the play starts, Iago assures Roderigo that he detests Othello, and he states that the only true motivation for this hatred is because he was passed up for promotion, and that Cassio has become Othello’s lieutenant. Sound as his military judgement was, he clearly could not foresee the impeding wrath of his flag bearer. This rejection pushes Iago into seeing that Othello get his due punishment for passing up on him. The fact that Iago was not chosen brings about a sense of emptiness. This is the man that he would gladly die for on the battlefield. Othello was everything to Iago; now that he is passed over, Iago is nothing. The death of this belief leads Iago to plan out his revenge for the Moor.
Iago, who presents himself as Othello’s confidante, signifies the antithesis of the virtues of the play, and Othello’s belief in the lies this villain tells destroy these values and lead to his demise. Iago is disloyal from the start. From the beginning he tells us, “In following him [Othello], I follow but myself. / … I am not what I am” (I, I, 55-62). Iago feigns devotion to Othello only to bring him down, and in doing so he makes himself seem virtuous and turns the true virtue, in Desdemona, to vice. When scheming to make Othello think that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio, Othello’s lieutenant, he plays on her concern for people, and her willingness to help Cassio come back into Othello’s favor: “So will I turn her virtue into pitch, / And out of her goodness make the net/ That shall enmesh them all” (II, iii, 360-62). As the opposite of all that is valued in the play, Iago is able to make the virtue of the other characters into their downfalls without them suspecting it. He observes of Othello, “The Moor…Is of a constant, loving, and noble nature” (II, I, 288-89). He then plans to use this nature to “Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me / … Even to madness” (II, I, 308-11). Iago uses Othello’s trusting nature and Desdemona’s goodness to create the
In short, Othello, the Moor of Venice, is about the forbidden love between Desdomona and Othello. Roderigo, a man of wealth, is filled with envy, for he craves Desdomona as his own. Thus, Roderigo pays Iago, Othello 's ancient, to help him win Desdomona over. Iago creates a cascade of events that lead Othello into a fierce jealousy. This jealousy leads to Othello losing himself, and many people who he had deeply cared for. Furthermore, Iago uses Cassio as his pawn in these events since Cassio took the position of lieutenant, in which Iago so desperately wanted. Indeed, Iago 's plans work mostly in Iago 's favor.
Othello is a play about jealousy’s causes and effects. Each character in the play had different reasons to be jealous and each of them chose to deal with it a certain way. All three characters Iago, Othello, and Roderigo had such cases and in the end dealt with different conflicts and outcomes. It’s important to understand that their actions in dealing with their jealousies were a reflection of their characters, and persona.
Shakespeare’s Othello has many different reoccurring themes, particularly love, death and infidelity. One of the most obvious themes that drive a lot of the play is jealousy, stemming from the mischievous ways of Iago. His actions create a chain reaction of speculation, lying and most of all jealousy. Iago who plays a manipulative and dishonest character seems to bring out the worst traits of many of the characters within the play especially Othello. These reoccurring issues of manipulation and hatred begin early on in the play. It has been discovered that Othello and Desdemona have married, for everyone around these two, including friends and family this is a problem. This is especially an issue for Iago and Roderigo. Each of them seem to have there own reasons why these two should not be together, one for love of Desdemona and the other for hatred of Othello. They set up to break the newly weds apart by setting the stage with an accusation that Desdemona has cheated on Othello with Cassio, Othello’s lieutenant. After these accusations are made the lives of all the characters seem to spiral out of control, the relationship that takes the biggest toll in the end seems to be Othello and Desdemona. It is clear to see that this “green-eyed monster” in Shakespeare’s words, has the power to control the psyche of the human, resulting in unthinkable acts from many of the characters involved.
"Othello is set in a world and focuses on the passions and personalities of its major figures." (Thomas). Othello is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The work revolves around four central characters: Othello, Othello's wife Desdemona, his lieutenant Cassio and advisor Iago. The play appeared in seven editors between 1622 and 1705. The themes of the story are racism, love, jealousy, and betrayal. Othello is a black soldier who is accused of stealing his wife Desdemona. Although Desdemona's father dislikes his daughter's choice, Desdemona loves Othello very much and the two are married. Othello’s right hand man is angered at the fact that Othello picked a man named Cassio to be more important than him and he also feels that he is messing with his wife. Iago plans to manipulate Othello but his plan eventually causes more hurt to most of the characters. Iago tries to use the meeting between Cassio and Desdemona as a way to make Othello believe she was cheating on him. Iago goes on with his manipulative plan by planting a handkerchief in Cassio's room, and goes and tell Othello about what he has seen Cassio do. Othello becomes jealous throughout the story and begins to believe that Cassio is talking to his wife. Iago persuades Othello to come up with a master plan to kill Cassio and Desdemona. As Othello tries to kill Desdemona, Emilia, Iago's wife, comes in to tell Othello the truth about Iago. Unfortunately it is too late. Othello had already suffocated her. When Othello
At all points of one’s life, one has desires; what separates and defines a person is determined by how that person goes about dealing with those desires. Some believe in working honestly towards his or her aspirations and others in seizing it at any cost. Iago, the antagonist of the play Othello is one of those people who would do anything in order to get what he wishes. Because Othello names Cassio lieutenant instead of him, he begins to device a plan in vengeance to bring Othello and Cassio down, which ends up tragic for all of the major characters. Iago’s obsessive need for revenge stems from jealousy and ambition, and because he is a master manipulator, the plan goes extremely smooth for the majority of the play.