Sophie Cox

Julie Wunsch

History of theatre 2

February 5, 2023

In a brief summary of the play, Othello starts out in the middle of the action, and does not

show any prior details. As the audience we learn that Othello is married to Desdemona, Iago is

jealous of Othello’s success because Cassio was put in front of him, and Roderigo is jealous of

Othello’s relationship with Desdemona. Iago plans revenge on Othello by raising suspicions that

he is cheating on his wife with Cassio. Iago then finds Desdemona’s handkerchief and plants it in

Cassio’s room for Othello to find and conclude his suspicions of the affair between his wife and

him. Iago says, “I will in Cassio’s lodging lose this napkin. And let him find it. Trifles light as

air, Are to the jealous confirmations strong, As proofs of holy writ. This may do something. The

Moor already changes with my poison.” (3.3.329–333). Othello then strangles his wife out of

anger, but then learns her innocence. He then makes the decision to kill himself out of remorse

and Iago is the only main character left alive, taken away to prison for his actions.

To move away from exactly what the play was about and more about a response to what

it is about, as a class we have gathered that Othello is about a lot of things; like ego, gossip,

loyalty, but personally, I believe the main trope of the play is jealousy. The play starts out with

two characters, Iago and Roderigo, already jealous of Othello, and then moves on to Othello’s

jealousy of his wife’s affair that wasn’t even true, but was made up by Iago out of jealousy. The

play wouldn’t exist if these characters weren’t jealous, and that is how the play continues as we

follow Iago’s plan. As an audience, we feel anger and recognize the impulsiveness of the

characters by learning what the other person says and immediately jumping on it without
knowing if it was true or not. We see this in Desdemona’s father, as he learns she is having sex

with Othello by Iago and Roderigo, so he immediately jumps on the information and goes to

seek out Othello to punish him for pursuing his daughter with “magic”. We also see this in

Othello, like I mentioned before, when seeing the handkerchief on Cassio he immediately orders

Iago to murder him, and then kills his wife himself, not stopping for a second to consider that

they might both be innocent.

Now to move onto the question of why this play was written. Othello was most likely

written in 1604, during the reign of King James I. His reign marked a time period of social,

religious and political changes because of the transition from Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth

brought the country over to the protestant faith, and oversaw a rise of middle classes with

economic stability. In the time period, Othello showed themes of racism and identity issues, and

even though the play was first produced in a time period much different from today, the play still

remains relevant in a contemporary audience.

I believe the point of bringing this show to a contemporary audience is to bring up the

fact of jealousy and how it not only destroys the jealous person, but the foundations of society

and the people around them. This play literally ended with all the main characters, except for

Iago, dead. This is because of Iago’s plan and how it all went downhill from there. If he didn’t

act on his plan, everyone would still be alive. This shows that a single person’s jealously tore

down the entire society around him, and he ironically didn’t take himself out, but took everyone

else out. As an audience member, one might reflect on the play and realize that what Iago did

could have been dialed down a few notches. He could have communicated his jealousy with

someone instead of making this giant plan to ruin Othello’s life ultimately leading to three
deaths. The play in general shows that jealousy not only ruins your life, but the people around

you.