Iago as the Cause of the Tragedy of Othello and Desdemona or as the Catalyst

Iago as the Cause of the Tragedy of Othello and Desdemona or as the Catalyst

The play Othello was originally written from a collection of one

hundred and twelve stories called Cinthios Gli Hecatommithi. The

stories were mostly moralistic in tone. The stories were written in

French and Italian only. Therefore, Shakespeare had to have read it in

Italian of French. From all the one hundred and twelve stories

Shakespeare, chose one, regarding the Moor of Venice, Othello.

Shakespeare’s main innovation was in developing the villainous

character of Iago with his complex and ambiguous motives. Shakespeare

wrote the play in 1604, one hundred years after Hecatommithi was

written. A man named Geoffrey Bullough translated the story into

English.

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The play was situated in two places, Venice and Cyprus. All of act one

was set in Venice, and then the rest of the play is set in Cyprus. In

the 1600’s, the Monarch of England was King James I; he was also King

of Scotland, James VI, and the two kingdoms were united in 1603, by

his accession to the English throne. It was a period of high

inflation, when political and social unease presented constant threats

to the King and the establishment and when poverty was widespread. The

average person had no vote, and his wife had no rights at all. In the

plat Desdemona and Emilia are faithful and obedient to their husbands

because in the 1600’s all women respected their husbands and did what

they were asked to do, nothing against their husbands will. England

was a Christian country. All children were baptized, soon after they

were taught ...

... middle of paper ...

...hem.”

(Act 1 Scene 3, line 167)

I do not think that Iago was solely to blame for the tragedy. He was

the one that set out traps for Othello to fall in, but during Act, it

was predictable that Desdemona was going to die. I can say this

because every word that Iago said Othello would deny it but then he

would go back to Desdemona and question her. In addition, as iago had

worked out everything beforehand it would all connect and Othello

would believe it. If it were not for his weaknesses I do not think the

tragedy at the end would have happened. Because if he was straight

with Desdemona from the start and confronted her with his feelings and

what he had heard from Iago, then everything would have been clear and

would have been sorted, but because of his lack of trust and jealousy

it resulted in Desdemona’s death.