The Importance Of Death In Shakespeare's Othello

The play Othello, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic play that goes over a variety of topics, from love to death. Othello is a tragic play due to its many aspects of death throughout it. One character that falls to the hands of death is one of the main characters, Othello, and another being his wife Desdemona. Each of these deaths are a direct cause of another character’s actions, Iago. Within the play there are scenes of manipulation, betrayal, jealousy, lust, deceit, and murder. This play, Othello, contains many characters that have important roles to the development of the play and the plots that occur. These characters are the ones that make the play what it is and create the various moods and themes throughout the play. The characters

Arguably, the most predominant and important character to the play is the character Othello. Othello is considerably an outsider to those in this play. This distance is created and found due to the race of Othello. Within Act 1 Scene 1 of Othello, one of the characters refers to Othello as “thicklips” (Shakespeare, Othello line 68) and another refers to him as “an old black ram” (Shakespeare, Othello line 94). These slurs are indicative of the race of Othello and show that he is unlike the rest of the characters. Though race is a quality of Othello and contributes to his outsider personality, Othello is also very easily manipulated throughout the play. The character Othello is very gullible and gives trust where it is not deserved which is a factor to this easily manipulated personality that he has. As Kyrstin Gallagher states, “Othello seems to be a very impressionable character. He so quickly believes what others tell

Iago uses his ability to convince those around him and his hatred, for seemingly the majority, of the other characters to manipulate and accomplish his own ploys. In the beginning of the play, Iago confesses his hatred for Othello. This hatred compels Iago to manipulate others within the play. Iago wishes to cause the most mayhem that he can, and he uses every character to do so. In the play, Iago acts almost as a puppeteer to the other characters, pulling their strings and getting them to do as he wishes. With Othello, Iago tells him that his wife, Desdemona, is cheating on him with Cassio. This manipulation is done due to the pure hate Iago has for Othello and the plan to get Roderigo together with Desdemona. Iago is also seemingly puppeteering Roderigo in hopes to get Cassio killed for both Roderigo to gain Desdemona and for Othello because of the alleged affair with Desdemona. Iago spares no expense when it comes to his plans in the play. As it states in Act 3 Scene 3 “I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin, / And let him find it. / Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmations strong / As proofs of holy writ” (Shakespeare, Othello lines 1994-1997). In this excerpt, Iago takes Desdemona’s handkerchief in hopes to frame Cassio and prove the affair. This shows that Iago leaves out no details when manipulating the other characters which shows his true ingenuity and cunning ability when