Jealousy In William Shakespeare's Othello

When jealousy overcomes someone, it can be an overly dangerous characteristic or tool to hurt someone’s mental or physical well-being. Written by William Shakespeare, “Othello,” is one of the most famous tragedies written about the dangers of jealousy, love and deceit. Set in the 16th century Venice and Cyrus, Othello is a play with a black main character, Othello, that is a general in the Venetian army who runs away to secretly marry a white woman, Desdemona, a daughter of a senator, Brabantio, who becomes angry when he finds out about the secret arrangement and disowns his daughter. As turmoil and politics beings, so does jealously. Iago uses jealousy to make Othello doubt his faithfulness of his wife to fuel his anger and deceit him. This leads to the death of Othello’s wife and himself. The idea of jealousy and envy is explored by William Shakespeare in, “Othello,” shows how uncertainties and fears can exacerbate to cause one to manipulate those who they are envious of their lives or aspects.

Jealousy is simply the feeling of a fear that something you have might be taken away from you by someone else while envy is the undesirable wanting and longing for what someone else has. Both jealousy and envy

Although Iago says, “I known not if’t be true,” meaning he does not know if the rumors are true or not, he still proceeds to plan a way to ruin Othello’s marriage and life. Ironically during one of Iago’s and Othello’s encounters Iago says, “Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on” (3.3.170-172). Iago exclaims to Othello that he should be aware of jealousy and its powers because jealousy is capable of taking over its victims. The irony is that Iago sets up an elaborate plan to draws in Roderigo, because of his envy of Othello’s marriage with Desdemona, and ruin Othello’s