Othello Plot Analysis

 Othello Plot Analysis

Plot Analysis

Othello 

is the story of a gallant military general who has relished many triumphs on the battleground, but because of blunders of judgment and his interloper prestige in his society, disrupts his most intimate relationship and himself. The play commences on the majestic level of a military romance expanding on the Mediterranean Sea. However, the action of the drama dwindles to the stifling ending in the cramped bedroom where Othello kills himself after suffocating his naïve wife. The play moves from vast surfaces that provide a backdrop for Othello’s gallantry to interior spaces that offer—both factually and symbolically—no room to breathe. The play’s squeezing course indicates that unhelpful sentiments like envy put an emotional stranglehold on a person, suffocating their capacity to think obviously and hence avoiding them from acting moderately. It also distinguishes the arenas in which Othello is self-confident and strong, such as the exterior world of battle, with the domestic spaces in which he is less secure and able to be easily influenced.

The incident that sets the central character and rival on a confrontation course arises before the play commences when Othello decides Cassio as a lieutenant. In being passed over for promotion, Iago believes cast aside and left to fill the position of “ancient”, a military position that places at the very bottom of all commissioned officers. Even Though angry with Othello’s preference, Iago feels alike upset that the coveted job went to Cassio, who Iago ponders less competent than he is. He also later discloses that he believes Cassio might have slept with his wife “For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too.” (II.i.) Iago considers doubly humiliated: a promotion he imagines was duly his went to another man, and both men liable for the slight – Othello and Cassio – may be sleeping with his wife. At this moment, the audience’s commiserations are with Iago, as we haven’t yet witnessed Othello, and Iago does have just cause for his grievances.

The friction of the play escalates once the audience meets Othello and realizes how calamitous Iago’s scheme will be. Othello and Desdemona’s pronouncements of love for each other, and Desdemona’s inclination to be disowned by her father in order to be with Othello, raise the stakes for the couple, and moves the audience to Othello’s side. By differing Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio’s righteous natures with Iago’s untruths, the play intensifies the tension between the truth and trickery. With everyone in the play subject to Iago’s plotting, the audience becomes his silent co-plotter as he discloses his strategies in a series of asides. As Iago effortlessly accomplishes in his plot to get Cassio intoxicated, inflames him to fight Roderigo, and convince Othello to fire him – all the while acting as though he loves Cassio – we see what a skilled machiavelli he is. Iago’s plotting, scornful nature is bluntly contrasted with the rest of the characters in the play, who are all negated by their own trusting, truthful natures and their incompetence to see through Iago’s trickeries.

The conflicting forces of good, as represented by Othello, and evil, as represented by Iago, come into direct contact at the end of Act III, scene iii, when Othello kneels with Iago and pledges his unswerving desire to take revenge on those who have cuckolded him. Unlike many Shakespearean tragedies where the protagonist confronts the antagonist at the play’s climax, Othello expresses his absolute trust in Iago by appointing him his new lieutenant. Othello’s misplacement of trust, and blindness to Iago’s true motivations, increases the tension further, as the audience wonders when, if ever, Othello will see the truth about his supposed friend. As Othello becomes increasingly deranged with jealousy, and refuses to listen to Desdemona’s protestations of her innocence, he becomes less a protagonist, and starts to figure more as a second antagonist, acting in league with Iago. From this point on, no matter what Desdemona does, it only proves her guilt in Othello’s eyes.

In the play’s remaining two acts, Iago’s treacherous plot unfolds with a brutal inevitability. Othello shifts from believing Desdemona could never betray him, to demanding proof of her infidelity so he can feel justified in killing her. When Iago suggests Othello strangle Desdemona in the bed in which she was allegedly unfaithful, Othello says “Good, good, the justice of it pleases!” (IV.i). Othello still loves his wife passionately, but rather than considering her virtues as arguments against Iago’s accusations, instead sees them as reasons to be all the more upset by her alleged infidelity: “O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!” (IV.i) Deranged with jealousy, Othello conspires with Iago to murder Cassio and devises his plan to kill Desdemona. Either his wife has been unfaithful and is lying to him, or his beloved, “honest” friend Iago has been lying to him. Only after he kills Desdemona does Othello discover he believed the wrong person. When, he at last, realizes his error, he kills himself, rather than live in a world where honor and honesty have no value.