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Protagonist: Othello
Antagonist: Iago
Iago: Military officer who schemes against Othello because the Moor did not
promote him. He is evil through and through, taking great pleasure in
bringing down the great Othello.
Duke of Venice: Ruler who finds in favor of Othello when Desdemona's father
attacks Othello's character.
Lodovico: Brabantio's kinsman, who bears a message from the duke recalling
Othello to Venice.
Emilia: Wife of Iago. She is blind to his evil until she discovers that it was he
who plotted against Othello and Desdemona.
Themes
Jealousy has the power to destroy. It destroys both Iago (jealous that Michael
Cassio has received an appointment over him) and Othello (jealous that his
wife may love Cassio).
Hatred is often skin deep. Racial prejudice is a crucial issue in the play, for it
isolates Othello, making him feel like a defective and an outcast. As such, he
wonders whether he is worthy of Desdemona–and whether she has turned
her attentions toward a handsome white man, Cassio, as Iago maintains.
Brabantio and Iago are the most bigoted characters. Brabantio is horrified
that his daughter has eloped with a Moor who will give him dark-skinned
children; Iago cannot brook the fact that he must take orders from a black.
As in Macbeth, all things are not what they seem. At the beginning, Othello
appears strong and self-disciplined, and Iago presents himself as loyal and
trustworthy. Later, Othello is revealed as a victim of his emotions, and Iago
as a disloyal and evil man.
Bad things happen to good people. Desdemona is pure and innocent, the
ideal wife. Othello is noble, loving, and accomplished, the ideal husband. But
he murders Desdemona, then kills himself. In the real world, bad things
happen to good people. Chance, character flaws, and the presence of evil–in
this case, Iago–often militate against happy endings.
.......After Iago and Roderigo raise a clamor outside Brabantio’s house late
one evening, the senator awakens and comes to a window. Iago then uses
vulgar animal imagery to slur Othello, telling Brabantio that the black Moor
has seized his greatest treasure, his daughter, and at that very moment is
defiling her.
When Brabantio reacts with incredulity, Iago replies with a metaphor that this
time compares Othello to a horse:
’Zounds! sir, you are one of those that will not serve God if the devil bid you.
Because we come to do you service and you think we are ruffians, you’ll have
your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews7
neigh to you; you’ll have coursers for cousins and gennets8 for germans.9 (1.
1. 119)
.......By and by, Brabantio and others appear. The senator, after denouncing
Othello for taking Desdemona to his “sooty bosom” (1. 2. 87), accuses the
Moor of having used “foul charms” (1. 2. 90) and “drugs or minerals” to
weaken Desdemona’s will.
.......Having lost a battle, Iago continues to plot to win the war, still using
racism as one of his weapons. Consider that in referring to Othello, he
sometimes inserts the word black to remind listeners that the Moor is
different, a man apart, a man to be isolated. For example, after referring to
Othello in Act 1 as a “black ram,” he tells Michael Cassio in Act 2, Scene 2,
“Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup of wine, and here without are a brace of
Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to the health of black
Othello” (25).
Imagery
The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief. (1. 3. 230)
After the Duke of Venice exonerates Othello before the council of Venice, he
advises Brabantio in this paradox to accept the verdict in good humor rather
to protest it with petty grumbling.
The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as
bitter as coloquintida. (1. 3. 333)
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost
without deserving. (2. 3. 226)
Iago tells Cassio that reputation is not as important as the latter thinks it.
Of one that lov’d not wisely but too well. (5. 2. 398-400)
Use of Irony
Planted Evidence
.Climax
Murder Methods
Othello as Hero
.......A Moor was a Muslim of mixed Arab and Berber descent. Berbers were
North African natives who eventually accepted Arab customs and Islam after
Arabs invaded North Africa in the Seventh Century A.D. The term has been
used to refer in general to Muslims of North Africa and to Muslim conquerors
of Spain. The word Moor derives from a Latin word, Mauri, used to name the
residents of the ancient Roman province of Mauritania in North Africa. To
refer to Othello as a "black Moor" is not to commit a redundancy, for there
are white Moors as well as black Moors, the latter mostly of Sudanese origin.
In what ways are Othello and Desdemona similar to Romeo and Juliet? In
what ways are they dissimilar?
Do you believe Iago despises Othello because Othello is black? (4) Would you
marry a person of opposite color? Explain your answer.
If Othello was such a great general, a man who could read the mind of his
enemy, why was he so easily deceived by Iago?
Many of us tend to root for villains--bank robbers on the lam, prison inmates
after an escape, mad scientists coaxing a monster to life, and miscreants like
Iago. Write an essay explaining why we root for villains, an essay that probes
the dark side of the human psyche to find sparks from a primeval fire that
has enkindled malevolent voyeurism in all of us.
Freely using your imagination, write an essay that tells what Iago was like as
a child.