Othello by William Shakespeare

Othello by William Shakespeare

The play "Othello" was written by the playwright William Shakespeare,

one of the best and well-known writers of that period and upto the

current day. He wrote it in 1604 to be performed to the new King: King

James I and for that reason he included themes in it such as Turkish

history, witchcraft and black magic which he knew King James I liked.

The play is named after one of the main characters who has a fatal

flaw. The character in question is Othello, the Moor of Venice, a

believing and honourable member of the Venetian community and a

general of the Venetian army. Although the play was named after

Othello, Shakespeare brings in a true villan whose name is Iago. At

the time Spain was Englands enermy and Iago being a Spanish name makes

the audience sure that Iago is evil. Iago could arguably be the main

character, making the play a tragedy which is a play in which

characters must struggle with circumstances in which most meet death

and despair which in this case the Moor's torture and eventually his,

and other innocent characters' demise. Shakespeare seems to suggest in

this play that white Iago is a very negative character and Othello the

black general is the hero. This would have been at a time when much of

England would have questioned these views. Shakespeare may have been

trying to make a social comment and putting forward a negative

attitude towards racism.

The story is based around a tale by the Italian writer Giraldi

Cinthio. It begins in Venice, a `nice', civilised city, and moves to

the chaotic war in Cyprus. This change has a lot of significance and

relevance in the play because it symb...

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...hello won't rest

and keeps on asking her, showing how well Iago has worked up Othello

with evil lies.This scene and the temptation scene bring the play up

to its climax full of dramatic tension Shakespeare has cleverly made.

Lots of Iago's motives were based on suspicion and his truly wicked

and cunning ways forced Othello's weakness to come from him -

jealousy. Othello changed during the play from a polite general to a

badly spoken murderer all because Iago thought Othello may have slept

with his wife and Othello didn't promote him but Cassio. In this play

Iago was prepared to ruin and end peoples' lives just because of his

jeaousy. His motives were small and his actions huge and horrific. So

what most people would wonder and what Othello asked on the brink of

death was: "Why hath thou thus ensnar'd my soul and body?"