Importance Of Handkerchief In Othello

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The handkerchief in Othello, plays a significant role throughout the entire play affecting many characters in the story. For such a small item, it has a tremendous amount of value. Without the handkerchief, the main plot of the story would not be the same. The handkerchief is not the direct plot, but to be such a small object, it creates an extremely important detail. In the beginning of the play, the handkerchief is used mostly in a positive way and its definition to every character is positive. Towards the end, the handkerchief becomes even more important but for each character it affects, it brings a negative connotation.
For Othello, the handkerchief has two different meanings. In the beginning of the play, it is a sign of the past. The handkerchief was given to Othello by his mother and it was given to his mother by an Egyptian and has a mystical meaning to it. It would keep his father faithful and his mother knew of this. Othello’s mother gave it to him and told him as long as his woman had it, she would be faithful too (Andrews 1) . Othello values it to an …show more content…

I would say the handkerchief was equally important to Othello as it was to Iago. Iago had a plot from the very beginning of the play. He planned to take out Michael Cassio as Othello’s right hand man because he was jealous and felt that he deserved to be fulfill that position. Iago is a very interesting and strong character in the play, as he dominates almost everyone to be a part of his plot without even knowing what he is up to. No one knew about Iago’s plot, except Rodrigo, who was in love with Desdemona. Iago promised Rodrigo that if he would help him get Cassio fired, he would have a chance with Desdemona. Rodrigo listened to Iago and as a result of that got killed when Iago backfired and killed him. Iago had two sides to his personality. He faked to be such a good man to everyone, while behind their back he was killing them

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