Reflection on Shakespeare’s Othello

Othello is a tragedy written by Shakespeare in 1604. Othello is the name of the main character, who is a Moor military general in Venice. The minor characters are Desdemona, his wife; Cassio, his lieutenant; Iago, his ancient; Brabanzio, Desdemona’s father; Roderigo, in love with Desdemona; Emilia, Iago’s wife and Bianca, Cassio’s mistress. The setting of the play is a journey from Venice to Cyprus. The first place is symbol for order and reason, while the second stands for disorder and passions.

Why did Shakespeare write Othello? In my opinion Shakespeare wrote Othello since it allows him to study and to deepen human nature. Indeed Shakespeare was very skilled in reading human heart and behaviors, as his sonnets prove. Therefore, writing tragedies, Shakespeare could inspect different feelings, and before all, Othello is the tragedy of jealousy. Jealousy is one of the main themes of the play: it is the driving force of all the events in the tragedy. Jealousy takes possession of Othello, but it leads also Iago, his foil. Other minor themes belong to the emotional sphere too, such as friendship, love and hate, wrath and many other shades.

But feelings are not the only theme of the play. I’ve named Iago, Othello’s antagonist. He plays a relevant role in the story since he instills jealousy into Othello. Iago himself is jealous of Othello’s power and high position, and in addition, he is angry because the Moore hasn’t chosen him as his lieutenant. Iago wants to damage Othello: in order to reach his aim he pretends to be a loyal friend. In order to pretend to be another and to manipulate people, Iago uses language: his main instrument is using words and exploiting the power of words.

By his cunning use of the language derive misunderstandings and tricks that remind to the theme of reality and appearance, another key topic of the tragedy.   

To sum up, Othello is a really complex tragedy, that deepens a lot of themes and features on different levels. That’s the reason why it is one of the major tragedy written by Shakespeare, after Hamlet and before King Lear and Macbeth.