Iago feeds on Othello’s jealousy by using the Cassio and Bianca story to sound like he is talking about Cassio and Desdemona and because Othello is an over reactor he doesn’t question Cassio he just jumps to a conclusion and decides to kill Cassio. Othello used to be a slave and since he has been in this new environment love is new to him and he needs help so he turns to his best friend for help. Iago uses this to his advantage because Othello is innocent about love and Iago can use this to help Othello ruin his own life by taking harsh actions without thinking like a normal person would do. Othello completely trusts Iago as you can tell on page 112 after Othello has killed Desdemona even when Desdemona and Emilia says that Desdemona is not unfaithful he says that Emilia’s husband his friend is ‘honest, honest Iago.’ Repetition is used in this scene to try and prove a point to the person they are speaking to. This shows that Othello is trying to say to Desdemona that there is no way Iago is wrong. He refuses to accept that his friend has betrayed him. This shows how much Iago means to Othello.
Looking at Iago’s reasons for doing what he did to Othello they can be justified in a way. They can be justified because in Iago’s eyes Othello and Emilia had an affair and ruined the relationship with him and Emilia so he could be wanting is to get revenge so it can be slightly justified because Othello might have ruined his relationship with Emilia. There could be other reasons why Iago might have done this; he could have done this because Othello comes to Venice after being a slave in Africa and now he has overtaken Iago. Now Othello is commanding Iago and he could be jealous and he might be next in line so he could want to get ahead in life. If this was his reason then I think it is not justified because if Othello deserved to get ahead of Iago in life then he should be rightfully ahead of him and Iago is just being greedy and that is not justified. An alternate reason from both of them is that Iago is jealous of Cassio as well as Othello and by getting them both killed he will be much higher in the army and he will be much more respected. You can see how Iago hates Cassio when he speaks with Rodreigo. ‘Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.’ Again I feel that this is not a good enough reason and if this was so the reason of Iago’s terrible acts then they are once again not justified. This is a pathetic reason for killing someone and this is like two boys’ bickering in a school playground and this just is not right. He is just filled with pure hatred for Othello and he has not thought about the consequences at the end of it. Iago could feel that he has been denied love, power and order so he seeks to destroy them that do have these like the mentioned above.
The arrival of Lodovico helps Iago to ruin Othello because Lodovico sees Othello strike Desdemona and if he didn’t see it then no one would believe it. Lodovico is also high in power and so people will believe but no one would believe Iago because he is not very respected and will just be laughed at because no one would think that Othello would do something to his wife like that. Iago can then undermine Othello to people because of this incident and someone powerful and high up saw this so people know its true.
Desdemona’s suffering starts when she speaks to Othello in Act 3 Sc. 4 (line 42-43) when Othello says that Desdemona has no love for him and she just married him to accomplish something and say she married someone powerful. Othello feels insecure with Desdemona and this is when the turning point in the play begins. This is when also Othello starts doubting Desdemona and not believing her. She says that she didn’t have an affair with Cassio and Othello calls her a liar. But I feel coming back to Othello being a black man in a white society and being a stranger to love he doesn’t really know what to do. This is when Othellos and Desdemona’s relationship starts to go down hill and it leads to both their deaths and tragic ending.
Othello’s poor judgement leads to his death because before killing Desdemona she says to him on page 109. ‘Kill me tomorrow: let me live tonight!’ I feel that she says this because she wants the time to get Cassio so they can explain to Othello what is really going on. But again as Othello is too proud he will not acknowledge that he is wrong and again acts irrationally and not correctly which doesn’t help him. If Othello were less proud then maybe he might have not acted so irrationally and maybe the end of the story would have turned out differently. He could have listened to Desdemona and Emilia then he would have found out about Iago and his terrible acts and then Iago would have been caught and arrested and tortured or executed for example.
Desdemona death affects others because it’s the biggest event to happen so far in the play and it shocks people the most. Also throughout the play words are repeated to make a point. For example Othello repeats honest twice to make a point that he sees Iago as being honest and he would never betray him. Desdemona repeats sweet husband to help her to live so she can prove that she has not been unfaithful or false towards Othello. This has no effect on Othello and he goes ahead and just kills Desdemona which later on he finds out was a big mistake and it results in him committing suicide because he feels it is the only right thing to do. Othello may now after this be described as a tragic hero as he has been throughout his life and now he is tragic because of every event committed in this play. The death of Desdemona also makes people feel confused because they don’t know what to do they don’t know whether to believe Emilia where that Othello has killed Desdemona or that it was a freak accident and Emilia is just jumping to conclusions. I feel that because of what Lodovico saw when Othello struck Desdemona that more people would believe that Othello would do something like this because if he can lose his temper and strike his wife then if he really loses his temper then what else can he be capable of! So because of that earlier mishap Othello will be more strongly accused of this offence.
Othello’s death does bring order back to the situation. Othello has recognised what he has done and now and he has punished himself for doing it by killing himself and this kind of justifies the situation not completely but more than it would have been if he had just killed Desdemona. So in that way people respect Othello more than if he had just killed her. They now give him respect because he was betrayed by his best friend that he thought he could trust and he didn’t see that it was coming and now he has now paid for his irrational behaviour from earlier on in the play. This would be a dramatic turn if I were to watch the play. It would make an audience feel sorry for him because he asks Cassio questions about the handkerchief and he finds out that Cassio found it in his chamber. The Othello calls himself a, ‘O fool, fool, fool!’ Again this is repetition but it helps Othello to try and prove a point to the people around him. This is when he stops being proud and has realised that he has been so ignorant before that if he had stopped and talked with Desdemona then none of this would have happened. He realises that he has relied on Iago so much that he has been a fool not to see what tricks Iago was playing. I think that he feels that he should die as a punishment of his duties he has carried out that night. He speaks to the people in his room not to make excuses for him but to describe the scene of how it is and what a barbarian he his. ‘Nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak of one that not loved wisely, but too well.’ I think that this is when you come to the term that Othello is a tragic hero and you really get how tragic this is for someone like Othello.
To conclude this essay I feel that the whole of this tragic story is inextricably linked with the lives of others in this type of society. I think that because they are such a unit that this event and it have affected them all will affect their lives and they I think will always remember Othello as a man of great honour. Yet he did not get the right treatment that he deserved. He was just an innocent fool in love and friends with the wrong kind of man. This will justify Othello and make him out as the TRAGIC HERO that he is!
By Drew Welch.10TF.
