Cassio has a high place in society from noble birth, which is why he is given the position of lieutenant. He is very open, honest, trusting and loyal yet he is only human so naturally he has weaknesses; his courtship with Bianca and the way he cannot take his drink. His actions, when drunk, contribute to the play by adding an air of lightness to it because it is an ordinary weakness and merely proves he is human.
The way Cassio sees his position as extremely important to him could be seen as a weakness in the way that he obsesses about it but this would have been understandable to a Jacobean audience.
Cassio’s language is very important in the way that it shows the audience how high his position in society is. The brief exchange between Cassio and Iago reveals more that the difference in their social status. Iago’s abrasively sexual description of Othello having “boarded a land carrack” fails to prompt a similar coarseness from Cassio. His tact and reserve give nothing away but seem designed to discover just how much Iago knows about the matter. His eloquent language also shows how he is more of a diplomat than a soldier is. He is not, however, as inexperienced as Iago suggests in terms of fighting: he wounds Montano in the drunken brawl and comes off better than Roderigo in the fight at the end. Although this skill may have been due to his noble education where he would have learnt to fence, he would probably not have needed to use his experience on the battlefield like Iago.
Cassio is important to the play as a tragedy because he is the only man left standing at the end. This means that he gets the position of general, showing how after the turmoil of the tragedy, with people trying to move to a rank that society rules will not allow, everything returns to order, with the suitable man for the job, Cassio, taking over Othello’s place. This would have been expected by the Jacobean audience that the play was originally written for. In Shakespeare’s time, there would have been no change in social status of an individual and although this may seem unfair today, this was a comfortable arrangement in a society where everyone had their place.
Cassio plays a role that he doe not he is playing: the role of Iago’s tool for getting what he wants.
Roderigo would not be a suitable person for Iago to use in the way he does Cassio because, apart from the fact that it is Cassio’s position that Iago wants, no one would take Roderigo seriously. Roderigo’s manner of speaking and what he says would not make him appear to be a serious threat to Othello. Cassio, however, is loyal, trustworthy, and faithful and so is taken seriously when he is seen speaking to Desdemona. In addition, Cassio’s “daily beauty” makes Othello insecure that Desdemona might find Cassio more attractive than him.
The play suggests that even the slightest human weakness can leave a character vulnerable to someone like Iago.
For Cassio, the combination of not being able to hold his drink and his trusting nature makes him open to Iago’s manipulation. This may make a trusting nature seem like a weakness. However, this would probably be more of a weakness in the twenty-first century when there is competition between people to rise above the rest making everyone an opponent. To a Jacobean audience, however, Cassio’s trusting nature would appear normal, as there would be no reason to him to fear Iago taking his place as mobility between ranks would not have happened often at all and there was a security in social structure.
Because Othello trusts Cassio so much at the beginning of the play, when Othello suspects him, he is unable to trust anyone (including Desdemona) other that the person who showed him Cassio’s ‘untrustworthiness’ (Iago.)
Othello’s weakness of assuming Cassio feels as passionately about Desdemona as he does, is what makes Othello believe Iago’s tales so readily.
The play works only through the combination of the weaknesses of the characters. Iago’s weakness of over-ambition allows him to use Cassio’s minor weaknesses of “poor and unhappy brains for drinking” and his relationship with Bianca to bring him to the point where he talks about her, giving Othello his ‘proof’. This is only accepted as proof because Othello is blinded by his weaknesses of jealousy and his weakness to assume that others feel like he does about Desdemona.
Cassio’s treatment of Bianca would seem harsh in today’s society, but the Jacobean audience would accept his using her as appropriate to her class and character and would recognize her acceptance of the arrangement.
Cassio also has an unattractive awareness of the advantages of rank when he points out that “the lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient.”