“Othello” is Othello's tragedy but Iago's play. Discuss. - page 1
Keywords: “Othello” is Othello's tragedy but Iago's play. Discuss.
By crazy legs on 18/11/2006 18:20:17
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 3 pages: 1 2 3
“Othello” is Othello's tragedy but Iago's play. Discuss.
I partly agree with the statement as when reading the play you notice that Iago speaks far more than Othello and other characters. However, does it matter to the audience or reader whether Iago speaks more? To me it appears that once I looked at all of the play in total I can see that Othello is still the more important character in the play. Everything Iago does is aimed to make a difference in the life of Othello, to me that makes Othello the most important character in the play because everyone is present because of him and their actions have an impact on Othello.
However, I believe that it is Othello's play and also his tragedy and it is Iago's actions in my view, which make it Othello's play. You can link Othello to all of Iago's actions throughout the play and the actions of Iago start in the first place because Othello tells him 'I have already chosen my officer ... ... a great arithmetician one, Michael Cassio, a Florentine.' That quotation is the first time in the play were we see Iago's hatred build. Acts 1-3 contain scenes in which Iago pieces together his whole sinister plot to get revenge. He first tells Roderigo to sell his lands and move to Cyprus to court Desdemona. The last stanza is where he manifests his "grand scheme". His idea is to get Othello into thinking Cassio is in love with Desdemona. That way Cassio will be dismissed from lieutenant and Othello will lose Desdemona.
Othello's important role in the play is at the end, were he smothers Desdemona. This is ultimately what the play has been leading to and although Othello is not aware of it throughout the play, the audience do know and this again leads me to believe that it is Othello's play. The point of most tragedies is for someone to be knocked off their position in social or moral class and to be overpowered in some way. A tragedy tells the story of a great man reduced to something much smaller, often through his own lack of judgement or stupidity. That central person is normally the main character because of what happens to them. This is the same in Othello because of the plot, where everything is building up to the time where
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