Othello - Human Experience Portrayal

Shakespeare’s Othello is a tragic play that significantly demonstrates the very worst of human morality in order to reinforce the values of honesty, integrity and trust. Many of the flaws in Elizabethan society at the time the play was written were exposed when dealing with the virtue of honesty due to its undermining as only face value. This is especially outlined in the underlying issue of ‘appearance over reality’ where those of high status and had white skin were considered to be forthright and blacks to be deceitful and bestial in nature. Elizabethan society believed in the ‘Great Chain of Being’, which ranked individuals from those fated to be nobility down to the peasants and each were only permitted to mingle with their own kind. They also perceived that challenging this structure would bring about chaos in the natural order of this society and the world. The elopement of Othello and Desdemona - a black general and a white noble - can be understood in light of this and is a factor that consequently brings about Othello’s downfall as well as many other characters in the play. Furthermore, to a larger degree, the ensuing ruination can be attributed to a lack of trust, allowing the Machiavellian antagonist, Iago to flourish with his web of deceit and manipulation.

Throughout the play, the underlying issue of ‘appearance over reality’ is manifested in the seemingly honest man known as Iago. The deceitful guise and manipulative nature of such an antagonist is expressed initially through Shakespeare’s use of scene juxtaposition and repetition of the term ‘honest’. In the orientation scenes, Iago is cast under the equivocal shadowy blanket of night and this sets the stage for his initial strings of manipulation, which is especially conveyed in his antithetical, “I follow him to serve my turn upon him.” This articulates his intention to create an illusion of service, yet in reality, to seek only to satiate his desire for retribution upon Othello, who overlooked...