Othello

Othello is a play about jealousy: the “green-eyed monster” that drives the play to its tragic conclusion. It is also a play about insecurity, loss of innocence, violence, and the nature of evil. One of its central plot elements is indicated by its subtitle: Othello, the Moor of Venice. Othello is black (a member of the ethnic group known as the Moors), and while this fact held different implications in Elizabethan England than in the contemporary West, in the play it nevertheless sets him apart within the insular culture of Venice and is frequently remarked upon by other characters. Othello’s status as black lead has remained a fundamental and much-debated aspect of the play as attitudes towards race have evolved.

The play is dominated, dramaturgically and in terms of line-count, by two characters: the eponymous general Othello and his third-in-command Iago, a malevolently hateful and brilliantly manipulative villain who maneuvers the action of the play to its grim conclusion. Both parts are in the top 5 longest in all of Shakespeare’s works, but Iago’s part is longer (and more memorable).

Othello is a vivid depiction of the ways in which our strongest and most positive emotions can be turned against us, as the fundamentally honorable Othello, thanks to “honest” Iago, is undone by his own passion for his new bride Desdemona.

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