Othello and Iago in William Shakespeare's Play

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Othello and Iago in William Shakespeare's Play

Othello, the main character in the play is married to Desdemona. At

the start of the play Othello is seen as evil and bad by all the other

characters and the audience. Brobantio (Desdemona's father), dislikes

Othello very much at the start of the play. This is because Othello

married Desdemona without her father's consent and Brobantio thinks

Othello has used black magic to win Desdemona's love. Whereas, this

isn't the case, Othello married Desdemona because he loved her and she

loved him. Also, in the time period the play is set, women were never

seen as very important people in society and they were seen as the

property of men. Usually their husband or father, this is why

Brobantio is angry about the fact, Othello married Desdemona.

Brobantio calls Othello a "foul thief", because of this. We also see

Iago talking about Othello in a very cruel and foul way to Roderigo.

For instance, Iago uses very racist language when talking about

Othello, and he encourages Roderigo to do so too, "thick lips"; this

is a very racist term used to describe black people. A racist thing

Iago says is,

"An old black ram/ is tupping your white ewe", Othello is described as

an evil black man here, (the black ram), corrupting an innocent white

woman, (the white ewe).

However, Othello isn't an evil and bad man after all, he puts this

idea forward very quickly to both, the characters and the audience. We

see that Othello is a very honest and good man. Also, he is a very

good and well-respected soldier so he certainly wants respect off

other people. We get this idea when Othello talks about why he loves

...

... middle of paper ...

...ren't true. Othello

only killed Desdemona because he believed what Iago had said about

her. Also Iago killed two people while Othello killed one so Iago is

worse then Othello. It could also be said Iago took four lives because

he made Othello take Desdemona's life and his own life by lying to

Othello and making him jealous. If Iago hadn't made Othello jealous

Othello wouldn't have killed Desdemona, therefore, he wouldn't have

taken his own life. At the end of the play it is clear that Othello

deeply regrets what he's done to Desdemona and he is sorry. This is

clear because he tells everybody about himself and what caused him to

murder Desdemona. However, Othello could have also been concerned

about how all the characters would remember him when he dies,

therefore, this could have caused him to do the speech at the end.

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