Iago made sure that he takes his revenge on Othello and takeaway the most important this to Othello, His wife, Desdemona. Iago figured out that in order to destroy his life he needs to destroy Desdemona’s and Othello’s relationship. He made sure this happens and he carefully plans his work, first he made sure Cassio lost his job by getting him drunk, later Iago tells Cassio to go and speak to Desdemona to see if he could get his job back. During that moment Iago tells Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are in love, later on Othello sees Cassio and Desdemona talking together. Iagos corrupted mind gave him another devious plan, to steal Othellos handkerchief, which was every important to Othello as it has been passed down to him in generations. Iago tells Emelia to steal the handkerchief.
Iago then goes back to Othello and tells him that he saw Cassio with his white handkerchief. Othello, who couldn’t believe his ears, went back to check whether what Iago has told him was true. Othello found out that this was true, and his anger made him kill Desdemona. This scheme worked because Othello was trustworthy and believed in everyone, Iago used this to take revenge on him.
Othello is noble, ardent, heroic, self centred and trusts everyone. Othello is noble to everyone, his friends and his wife, he’s heroic because he always willing to do something dangerous without thinking about fear, he’s self centred and he always thinks he’s right, he doesn’t listen to anyone under his power and the best quality he has is trust, he trusts everyone.
Othello managed to become a much appreciated general and he managed to get the best looking women around. He achieved the most important things he ever wanted, but as the days go pass by he seem to loose himself.
Desdemona fell in love with him because of his positive qualities of being heroic, ardent, honest and noble. Othello didn’t need to try hard to get Desdemona to like him, his natural qualities attracted her.
People around Othello shows racism towards him, for example Emelia calls Othello ‘Blacker Devil’ when she found out that Othello killed Desdemona and when Iago says “Even now, very now, an old black ram is topping your white ewe" or "Barbary Horse" to turn Brabantio against Othello. Brabantio makes racist comment to Othello’s face, for example, "lascivious moor" and "Wheeling stranger".
I suppose that throughout the film Othello doesn’t seem to be jealous, for the reason that he got nothing to be jealous about, he got everything he wanted.
I feel that the only bit Othello should get blamed for is killing Desdemona and trusting his friend than his wife, he is also to blame to for being self-centred.
The only weakness’ Othello has was to be self centred and too trustworthy, as you can see when people are too perfect and nice, other people are out to take advantage of you or use this to take revenge on you.
In Othello’s last speech, “I kissed thee ere I killed thee; no way but this: Killing myself, to die upon a kiss”, he thinks about what has happened and realises his own faults towards it, he also learned a lesson on trusting people, he realises that his job and his friend was more important him than his wife, and at the end he is prepared to kill himself for his own faults, he does this with one last kiss on Desdemona to show her his sympathy and love.
Emilia is also to blame because she stole the handkerchief from Desdemona causing this whole blunder, even if she didn’t know the reason for stealing the handkerchief, she should know better to not steal, even if it’s her husband who told her to do so.
Cassio is also to blame for following Iago’s advice because even if it is advice from your friend you should always do what your heart says unless it perfectly makes sense, however on the other hand, one could assume that Cassio was just being a good friend.
Roderigo is not to blame for this incident because he didn’t get involved in the death of Desdemona and he didn’t do anything wrong to the end.
Desdemona is also to blame to not looking after the handkerchief, especially if she knows it’s going to upset Othello. However, I think that she was just doing her housework as usual.
Overall I think Iago should be blamed for everything because first he believed in something that never happened, Othello committing adultery with his wife, and so on he plans the revenge to be this way and everything went the way he wanted to, apart from the last scene when Emilia admits stealing the handkerchief. He made sure everybody thought in a way he wanted them to think, which was to turn everyone against Othello, even using Othello himself.
I believe that this was fate’s victims because Iago planned it to be in a certain way and these just seem to be the fate for Desdemona and Othello. And even if Iago didn’t meddle in Othellos and Desdemonas relationship in anyway, they would probably end up like this, because Othello and Desdemona lived in a very racist era, even the queen was against black people, so everybody wants them to separate and wanted Desdemona to be ‘normal’; living in an area like this, so many people would have things planned for Desdemona and Othello, so something is a lot more likely to go wrong with their relationship anyway.
