Othello's problems begin when he promotes one of his soldiers, Michael Cassio as his lieutenant. This arouses the jealousy and hatred of one of his other soldiers, Iago who hatches a plot to destroy Othello and Michael Cassio. When Cassio injures an opponent in a fight he is rebuked, punished, and subsequently ignored by Othello who must discipline him and teach him a lesson. Iago convinces Desdemona to intervene on Cassio's behalf and then begins to convince Othello that Desdemona is in love with Cassio.

This is actually one of the most difficult Shakespeare plays to watch because the audience sees the plot begin to unfold and is tormented by Othello's gradual decent into Iago's trap. As with other Shakespeare plays, the critical components of this one are revealed by language. When Othello is eventually convinced of Cassio's treachery, he condemns him and promotes Iago in his place. When Othello tells Iago that he has made him his lieutenant, Iago responds with the chilling line, "I am thine forever". To Othello this is a simple affirmation of loyalty, but to the audience, this phrase contains a double meaning. With these words, Iago indicates that the promotion does not provide him with sufficient satisfaction and that he will continue to torment and destroy Othello. It is his murderous intentions, not his loyal service that will be with Othello forever.

Iago's promotion provides him with closer proximity to Othello and provides him with more of his victim's trust. From here Iago is easily able to persuade Othello of Desdemona's purported infidelity. Soon Othello begins to confront Desdemona who naturally protests her innocence. In another revealing statement, Othello demands that Desdemona give him "the ocular proof". Like Iago's earlier statement, this one contains a double meaning that is not apparent to the recipient but that is very clear to the audience who understands the true origin of Othello's jealousy. Othello's jealousy is an invisible enemy and it is also based on events that never took place. How can Desdemona give Othello visual evidence of her innocence if her guilt is predicated on accusations that have no true shape or form? She can't. Othello is asking Desdemona to do the impossible, which means that her subsequent murder is only a matter of course.

I know that to a lot of young people this play must seem dreadfully boring and meaningless. One thing you can keep in mind is that the audience in Shakespeare's time did not have the benefit of cool things such as movies, and videos. The downside of this is that Shakespeare's plays are not visually stimulating to an audience accustomed to today's entertainment media. But the upside is that since Shakespeare had to tell a complex story with simple tools, he relied heavily on an imaginative use of language and symbols. Think of what it meant to an all White audience in a very prejudiced time to have a Black man at the center of a play. That character really stood out-almost like an island. He was vulnerable and exposed to attitudes that he could not perceive directly but which he must have sensed in some way.

Shakespeare set this play in two locations, Italy and Cypress. To an Elizabethan audience, Italy represented an exotic place that was the crossroads of many different civilizations. It was the one place where a Black man could conceivably hold a position of authority. Remember that Othello is a mercenary leader. He doesn't command a standing army and doesn't belong to any country. He is referred to as "the Moor" which means he could be from any part of the Arab world from Southern Spain to Indonesia. He has no institutional or national identity but is almost referred to as a phenomenon. (For all the criticism he has received in this department, Shakespeare was extrordinarlily attuned to racism and in this sense he was well ahead of his time.) Othello's subsequent commission as the Military Governor of Cypress dispatches him to an even more remote and isolated location. The man who stands out like an island is sent to an island. His exposure and vulnerability are doubled just as a jealous and murderous psychopath decides to destroy him.

Iago is probably the only one of Shakespeare's villains who is evil in a clinical sense rather than a human one. In Kind Lear, Edmund the bastard hatches a murderous plot out of jealousy that is similar to Iago's. But unlike Iago, he expresses remorse and attempts some form of restitution at the end of the play. In the Histories, characters like Richard III behave in a murderous fashion, but within the extreme, political environment in which they operate, we can understand their motives even if we don't agree with them. Iago, however, is a different animal. His motives are understandable up to the point in which he destroys Michael Cassio but then they spin off into an inexplicable orbit of their own. Some have suggested that Iago is sexually attracted to Othello, which (if its true) adds another meaning to the phrase "I am thine forever". But even if we buy the argument that Iago is a murderous homosexual, this still doesn't explain why he must destroy Othello. Oscar Wilde once wrote very beautifully of the destructive impact a person can willfully or unwittingly have on a lover ("for each man kills the things he loves") but this is not born out in the play. Instead, Shakespeare introduces us to a new literary character-a person motivated by inexplicable evil that is an entity in itself. One of the great ironies of this play is that Othello is a character of tragically visible proportions while Iago is one with lethally invisible ones.


Shakespeare's best Villain   June 26, 2005
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Is there any other character in all of literature who is as calculatingly evil as Shakespeare's Iago? His jealousy over being passed over in favor of Cassio engenders a revengeful scheme that turns jealousy into a weapon used to destroy the noble Othello. Here innocence and trust is contrasted with pure manipulation and evil in what is one of Shakespeare's most revealing tragedies. The characters act exactly as they would be expected to based on the overriding quality that they represent. Othello is wonderful Shakespearean drama that ranks among his greatest works.
The Folger Library editions are my favorite. Each page has a facing page that explains obscure terms and helps as a handy reference to make reading the plays pleasurable and educational. These paperback editions of Shakespeare's works are a great value and fit in your pocket.



Shakespeare at His Best!   January 10, 2002
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Othello is by without a doubt my favorite of the plethora of Shakespeare's tragedies. Although Othello himself is quite an intricate character, it was funny and almost ironic how the character that grabbed my observance the most was the villain Iago. Iago, being perhaps Shakespeare's most consummate villain, directly or indirectly seemed to control the minds and hearts of almost everyone he interacted with. Bravery, loyalty, ambition, honesty, and chivalry are all issues addressed within the play, and when combined with a great deal of power struggles, they can create an intense whirlwind of emotions and confusion running high. Othello, even being a powerful and bold general, is easily deceived by Iago as well as are many of the other characters who soon come to find out what it means to be struck by Iago's wrath. All of these things considered, one can easily find themselves engulfed with all sorts of emotions, and be filled with empathy and rage toward the diverse array of characters, maybe even find a little piece of themselves in each one of them. The play can be compared to many of Shakespeare's plays, both comedy and tragedy, in different ways. If you enjoyed the plot of Much Ado About Nothing, or Romeo and Juliet, then you can not go wrong by reading this play. Also, if you like strong women roles and always find yourself identifying easily with those characters in Shakespeare's plays, one of the female characters in Othello, Emelia will be quite a delight. For me, by the last page and last quote of this play, I was literally holding back the tears, and that impact is no exaggeration. If you have yet to read Othello, don't wait another second. Go right now to the nearest bookshelf, dust it off and I promise the pages will just seem to simply turn themselves. Enjoy!


Shakespeare's Slump   March 4, 2000
 5 out of 16 found this review helpful

I love Shakespeare, but this is one play I consider an utter flop. Why it is as popular as it is, I have no idea. Except for Iago, all of the characters are major simpletons. Furthermore, if Othello is suppose to be so noble, why is he so ready to be duped into suspecting his wife of infidelity with hardly any evidence. If he loves his wife, why is he capable of killing her only days after they were married? I can not understand why no one even suspected Iago of being untruthful. Finally, I don't think this was Shakespeare's intention, but Iago comes off as a man who had several valid reasons to be angry. He was turned down for promotion in favor of Cassio (who from what we can gather from the play) is certainly Iago's inferior. He had reason to suspect Othello was screwing around with his wife, and he had reason to believe Cassio was messing around with his wife. While some people believe Iago is simply telling more lies when he speaks of this, we must remember, he reveals these things in soliloquies where there is no point in telling lies. Now if Othello was so enraged at the possible infidelity of his wife, how does he explain his crime of messing around with Iago's wife? Othello's end speech (and for that matter his other so called noble speeches) are infinitely unheroic and unconvincing after he brutally murders his wife. If you want to read a play that shows degeneration, stick with "Macbeth." Or if you want to see a magnificent villain, stick with "Richard III."


Review of William Shakespeare's "Othello" by Terry Hoge   May 10, 2004
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

What is more inticing than a story involving war-like patrons and scandal? This book has been absolutely entertaining and suspensful to read. It was stunning how many false stories, insinuations, and accussations the character "Iago" had set up from the beginning to the end. There were also so many other character types such as the pawn-like Roderigo, the seemingly calm yet furiously jealous Othello, the bleeding-heart of Desdemona, the honorable Cassio, and more! It was amazing how Iago had actually set up his false stories from the very beginning of the novel where he first employes Roderigo as his foolish pawn. The only factor of this book that was somewhat unsettling was how easily swayed Othello had gotten from Iago's insinuations. To a certain point, it almost seemed unrealistic. For example, towards the end of the play, when Iago retrieves the seemingly precious and invaluable handkercheif and uses it to make it seem that Cassio had recently been with Desdemona, that seems to be a little bit illogical. Just because Othello finds that Cassion has been holding the precious handkercheif doesn't abosuletly mean the Desdemona has been unfaithful. However, some could argue that the heavy pile of insinuations and false stories/accusations that Iago has placed on Othello could be seen as reason enough for Othello's furious rage and jealous behavior. All in all, though, this book has been quite pleasing. The amount of scandal (scandal as in the falsness of Iago) has been enough to please anyone looking for a suspensful tragedy to read.