“a Failure of Trust and Victory of Jealousy Are at the Heart of the Tragedy of Othello”
- Submitted by: ashlea
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- Category: English: Shakespeare
- Date Submitted: 11/20/2010 03:43 PM
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Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, the talented 1600s writer combined the themes of love, hate, jealousy and deception to bring about the downfall of one Cyprus’s most noble soldiers, Othello. Throughout the play, the audience can see the slow but sure failure of trust, and the manipulative victory of jealousy. A close analysis of the play shows one man brought about this uproar by exploiting others weaknesses, manipulating reality and relying on jealousy blinding the truth. This 16th century tragedy is a perfect example of how a person can view a situation differently when blinded by jealousy and that things aren’t always what they seam.
In the opening scene of the play Othello, it is made obvious to us, the audience, that the character Iago has a strong hatred for Othello, the black military general. This hatred comes from two main sources, one being that Othello chose the mathematical Michael Cassio as his second in command instead of himself, the brave, trustworthy Iago. His second reason for hatred is that he is jealous of Othello and Desdemona’s newly found love. Although it is never really spoken of, this jealousy triggers the unforgivable coming events. Evidence of Iago’s hatred for Othello can be seen in the lines “ I hate the moor” and when he refers to Othello as “an old black ram”. What we don’t see coming is the extreme horrors that Iago plans to unleash to destroy Othello and all of those around him.
Iago finds and exploits weaknesses of all those around Othello so he could make it seam that his lies were in fact reality. In the first scene of the play Iago uses Rodrigo’s love for Desdemona and his stupidity to his advantage, by feeding him lies about how wicked Othello is and that the only way to have Desdemona to himself is to destroy Othello. Throughout the play Iago continues to feed lies to Rodrigo by telling him that Michael Cassio is also after Desdemona’s heart and that he also must be eliminated. Rodrigo...
In the opening scene of the play Othello, it is made obvious to us, the audience, that the character Iago has a strong hatred for Othello, the black military general. This hatred comes from two main sources, one being that Othello chose the mathematical Michael Cassio as his second in command instead of himself, the brave, trustworthy Iago. His second reason for hatred is that he is jealous of Othello and Desdemona’s newly found love. Although it is never really spoken of, this jealousy triggers the unforgivable coming events. Evidence of Iago’s hatred for Othello can be seen in the lines “ I hate the moor” and when he refers to Othello as “an old black ram”. What we don’t see coming is the extreme horrors that Iago plans to unleash to destroy Othello and all of those around him.
Iago finds and exploits weaknesses of all those around Othello so he could make it seam that his lies were in fact reality. In the first scene of the play Iago uses Rodrigo’s love for Desdemona and his stupidity to his advantage, by feeding him lies about how wicked Othello is and that the only way to have Desdemona to himself is to destroy Othello. Throughout the play Iago continues to feed lies to Rodrigo by telling him that Michael Cassio is also after Desdemona’s heart and that he also must be eliminated. Rodrigo...