Theme Of Deception In Othello

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William Shakespeare’s play, “Othello, the Moor of Venice” depicts many themes including marriage, jealousy, and deception. Throughout the play different characters deceive one another while also deceiving themselves. This domestic tragedy shows how deceiving others can go too far in the end with the murdering of Desdemona and the death of Othello and how jealously can fuel the actions of a man’s heart. Othello grants the lieutenant’s position to young Cassio instead of Iago and because of that he devises a plan to hurt Othello and cause mischief between him and the other characters including his wife Desdemona. Overall, every character within the play is affected by Iago’s deceptive plan in one way or another.
Although Othello is deceived by …show more content…

Throughout the play Desdemona is a pawn in Iago’s evil plan to ruin Othello and she easily and unwillingly falls right into his trap. Iago is deceived by Desdemona early on in the play because he thinks she is beautiful he feels as if he is a better suitor for her but she is in love with Othello. Even though this is a false deception from Desdemona because she never meant to lure in Iago, he still gets angered by her unavailability and decides to cause chaos in her relationship. In some ways Desdemona is also deceiving herself by thinking that a long term relationship with an army general much older than her and not to mention a Moor is hard to believe especially for the time period of the play. Desdemona has false images and ideas of the life she will have with Othello and what marriage means to her which is somewhat childish to think that everything in their relationship would be perfect (Zender). This illusion of the perfect relationship that Desdemona has of her and Othello ultimately is shown not to be true because Othello strangles her to death without even allowing her to tell her side of the story or explain herself. Desdemona also unwillingly deceives Othello with her handkerchief when it was misplaced from her possession because he thought that she still had it so when Othello saw her handkerchief he jumped to conclusions that she was cheating on him with Cassio. Throughout the play Desdemona doesn’t deceive the other characters besides her father, but she is deceived by her own false images and is deceived by Iago. Iago uses Desdemona to deceive Othello in an elaborate plot to cause ruin to

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