Iago In Othello's Jealousy

William Shakespeare, born around 1564, is world renowned for piecing together literary masterpieces that stood as both works of art and social outcries. Through iambic pentameter and clever metaphors, the playwright created plays and sonnets that challenged the issues of the time, whether those were racial, hierarchal, or otherwise. In 1565, Shakespeare drafted Othello, a tragedy that told the story of Un Capitano Moro, the tale of a militarian Moor. When the general falls in love with the Venetian lady, Desdemona, and promotes Michael Cassio as his lieutenant, Othello becomes victim to a Machiavellian antagonist known as Iago. Due to Iago’s manipulative and serpentine hand, Othello shifts from a kind and caring husband to a green-eyed, easily-deceived

Romantic and kind, Othello is head over heals for his youthful wife, as any man would be, yet when jealousy is introduced, the general second guesses anything he previously thought was true. Iago slowly convinces Cassio to drink to satiety at the wedding party, and drunk and giddy, the new lieutenant scuffles with Roderigo, who had been planted just moments before. After a near deadly fight, Cassio is stripped of his position, and begs Desdemona to convince Othello that he is still a good man. He asks her to restore his reputation, screaming that he “[has] lost the immortal part of [himself], and what remains is bestial” (II, iii, 281-284). With Iago’s guidance, however, Othello misreads Cassio’s eagerness as one of lust and promiscuity. Instantly, he becomes wary of any fondness Desdemona shows as he is slowly convinced that she is partaking in an affair. Othello, in a conversation with the manipulative Iago, croons “think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy? … No. To once be in doubt is to be resolved” (III, iii, 207-210). At this point in the play, this reassurance was no longer to Iago, but to himself. Iago even goes so far as to warn Othello, with “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!” (III, iii, 195). Incessantly, Iago feeds into Othello’s tragic flaw, until the once beacon of strength cracks, collapsing into a seizure caused by pure rage. “Her name,

Othello goes so far as to admit that “[Desdemona] must die, else she’ll betray more men” (IIII, ii, 3-9). The misogynistic tendencies of the antagonist begin seeping into Othello’s morals by the end of the play, as he is reduced to a man focused solely on revenge. By act five, Othello has a plan of execution as to how he is going to slaughter the love of his life -- in their bedroom, on their wedding sheets. The Othello that diffused tension and prevented violence no longer exists by the final act of the play. In cold blood, Othello smothers his wife just before bed, convinced through the help of Iago that this woman was to make a cuckold of him, and that it was his personal duty to stop her from betraying anyone else. Reason is out of the question by the final scene, and upon Othello’s bed, after a brutal intervention, lay not only Desdemona, but Emilia, Iago’s wife, with the blood of Roderigo and Cassio still spilling. By the time Gratiano and Lodovico enter the bed-chamber, Othello sneers, “[Desdemona’s] like a liar gone to Hell!”, continuing to admit that “I killed her”, as plain and simple as that (Act V, ii, 159-161). Nonetheless, by the end of act five, Othello has killed himself, along with directly, his wife, and indirectly, two others, an entirely expansive modification from the original character in scene one. Without saving time for the reasonable Othello