Othello

Themes, Symbols and Motifs

Love
● In Othello, love is a force that overcomes large obstacles and is tripped up by small ones. It is
eternal, yet derail-able. It provides Othello with intensity but not direction and gives
Desdemona access to his heart but not his mind. Types of love and what that means are
different between different characters.
● Othello finds that love in marriage needs time to build trust, and his enemy works too quickly
for him to take that time. The immediate attraction between the couple works on passion, and
Desdemona builds on that passion a steadfast devotion whose speed and strength Othello
cannot equal.
● Iago often falsely professes love in friendship for Roderigo and Cassio and betrays them both.
For Iago, love is leverage. Desdemona's love in friendship for Cassio is real but is
misinterpreted by the jealous Othello as adulterous love. The true friendship was Emilia's for
Desdemona, shown when she stood up witness for the honor of her dead mistress, against
Iago, her lying husband, and was killed for it.

Appearance and Reality

● Appearance and reality are important aspects in Othello. For Othello, seeing is believing, and
proof of the truth is visual. To "prove" something is to investigate it to the point where its true
nature is revealed. Othello demands of Iago "Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore, be
sure of it, give me the ocular proof" (Act 3, Scene 3).
● What Iago gives him instead is imaginary pictures of Cassio and Desdemona to feed his
jealousy. As Othello loses control of his mind, these pictures dominate his thoughts. He looks
at Desdemona's whiteness and is swept up in the traditional symbolism of white for purity and
black for evil. Whenever he is in doubt, that symbolism returns to haunt him and despite his
experience, he cannot help but believe it.

Prejudice
● Iago's scheme would not have worked without the underlying atmosphere of racial prejudice
in Venetian society, a prejudice of which both Desdemona and Othello are very aware.
Shakespeare's Desdemona copes with prejudice by denying it access to her own life. Her
relationship with Othello is one of love, and she is deliberately loyal only to her marriage.
● Othello, however, is not aware how deeply prejudice has penetrated into his own personality.
This absorbed prejudice undermines him with thoughts akin to "I am not attractive," "I am not
worthy of Desdemona," "It cannot be true that she really loves me," and "If she loves me, then
there must be something wrong with her."
● These thoughts, inflamed by Iago's hints and lies, prevent Othello from discussing his
concerns and fears directly with Desdemona, and so he acts on panicked assumption. In
order to survive the combined onslaught of internalized prejudice and the directed venom of
Iago, Othello would have had to be near perfect in strength and self-knowledge, and that is
not fair demand for anyone.

Candle
● The candle Othello blows out just before he murders Desdemona symbolizes him
extinguishing her life.

Location
● Shakespeare often uses different locations to represent mindsets. In Othello, Venice
represents civilization, while Cyprus symbolizes the wilderness. The idea is that what
happened in the Cyprus never would happen in the civilized city of Venice.
Sight and Blindness

● When Desdemona asks to be allowed to accompany Othello to Cyprus, she says that she
“saw Othello’s visage in his mind, / And to his honours and his valiant parts / Did I my soul
and fortunes consecrate” (I.iii. 250–252). Othello’s blackness, his visible difference from
everyone around him, is of little importance to Desdemona: she has the power to see him for
what he is in a way that even Othello himself cannot. Desdemona’s line is one of many
references to different kinds of sight in the play. Earlier in Act I, scene iii, a senator suggests
that the Turkish retreat to Rhodes is “a pageant / To keep us in false gaze” (I.iii.19–20).

● The beginning of Act II consists entirely of people staring out to sea, waiting to see the arrival
of ships, friendly or otherwise. Othello, though he demands “ocular proof” (III.iii.365), is
frequently convinced by things he does not see: he strips Cassio of his position as lieutenant
based on the story Iago tells; he relies on Iago’s story of seeing Cassio wipe his beard with
Desdemona’s handkerchief (III.iii.437–440); and he believes Cassio to be dead simply
because he hears him scream.

● After Othello has killed himself in the final scene, Lodovico says to Iago, “Look on the tragic
loading of this bed. / This is thy work. The object poisons sight. / Let it be hid” (V.ii.373–375).
The action of the play depends heavily on characters not seeing things: Othello accuses his
wife although he never sees her infidelity, and Emilia, although she watches Othello erupt into
a rage about the missing handkerchief, does not figuratively “see” what her husband has
done.

Plants

● Iago is strangely preoccupied with plants. His speeches to Roderigo in particular make
extensive and elaborate use of vegetable metaphors and conceits. Some examples are: “Our
bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles or sow
lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme . . . the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
wills” (I.iii.317–322); “Though other things grow fair against the sun, / Yet fruits that blossom
first will first be ripe” (II.iii.349–350); “And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand, / Cry
‘O sweet creature!’, then kiss me hard, / As if he plucked kisses up by the roots, / That grew
upon my lips” (III.iii.425–428). The first of these examples best explains Iago’s preoccupation
with the plant metaphor and how it functions within the play. Characters in this play seem to
be the product of certain inevitable, natural forces, which, if left unchecked, will grow wild.
Iago understands these natural forces particularly well: he is, according to his own metaphor,
a good “gardener,” both of himself and of others.

● Many of Iago’s botanical references concern poison: “I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear”
(II.iii.330); “The Moor already changes with my poison. / Dangerous conceits are in their
natures poisons, / . . . / . . . Not poppy nor mandragora / Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
/ Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep” (III.iii.329–336). Iago cultivates his “conceits”
so that they become lethal poisons and then plants their seeds in the minds of others. The
organic way in which Iago’s plots consume the other characters and determine their behavior
makes his conniving, human evil seem like a force of nature. That organic growth also
indicates that the minds of the other characters are fertile ground for Iago’s efforts.
Animals

● Iago calls Othello a “Barbary horse,” an “old black ram,” and also tells Brabantio that his
daughter and Othello are “making the beast with two backs” (I.i.117–118). In Act I, scene iii,
Iago tells Roderigo, “Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I
would change my humanity with a baboon” (I.iii.312–313). He then remarks that drowning is
for “cats and blind puppies” (I.iii.330–331). Cassio laments that, when drunk, he is “by and by
a fool, and presently a beast!” (II.iii.284–285). Othello tells Iago, “Exchange me for a goat /
When I shall turn the business of my soul / To such exsufflicate and blowed surmises”
(III.iii.184–186). He later says that “[a] horned man’s a monster and a beast” (IV.i.59). Even
Emilia, in the final scene, says that she will “play the swan, / And die in music” (V.ii.254–255).

● Like the repeated references to plants, these references to animals convey a sense that the
laws of nature, rather than those of society, are the primary forces governing the characters in
this play.

● When animal references are used with regard to Othello, as they frequently are, they reflect
the racism both of characters in the play and of Shakespeare’s contemporary audience.

● “Barbary horse” is a vulgarity particularly appropriate in the mouth of Iago, but even without
having seen Othello, the Jacobean audience would have known from Iago’s metaphor that he
meant to connote a savage Moor.

Hell, Demons, and Monsters

● Iago tells Othello to beware of jealousy, the “green-eyed monster which doth mock/ The meat
it feeds on” (III.iii.170–171). Likewise, Emilia describes jealousy as dangerously and uncannily
self-generating, a “monster / Begot upon itself, born on itself” (III.iv.156–157).

● Imagery of hell and damnation also recurs throughout Othello, especially toward the end of
the play, when Othello becomes preoccupied with the religious and moral judgment of
Desdemona and himself. After he has learned the truth about Iago, Othello calls Iago a devil
and a demon several times in Act V, scene ii. Othello’s earlier allusion to “some monster in
[his] thought” ironically refers to Iago (III.iii.111).

● Likewise, his vision of Desdemona’s betrayal is “monstrous, monstrous!” (III.iii.431). Shortly

before he kills himself, Othello wishes for eternal spiritual and physical torture in hell, crying
out, “Whip me, ye devils, / . . . / . . . roast me in sulphur, / Wash me in steep-down gulfs of
liquid fire!”

● The imagery of the monstrous and diabolical takes over where the imagery of animals can go
no further, presenting the jealousy-crazed characters not simply as brutish, but as grotesque,
deformed, and demonic.

The Handkerchief
 ● The handkerchief symbolizes different things to different characters. Since the handkerchief
was the first gift Desdemona received from Othello, she keeps it about her constantly as a
symbol of Othello’s love.

● Iago manipulates the handkerchief so that Othello comes to see it as a symbol of Desdemona
herself—her faith and chastity. By taking possession of it, he is able to convert it into evidence
of her infidelity. But the handkerchiefs importance to Iago and Desdemona derives from its
importance to Othello himself. He tells Desdemona that it was woven by a 200-year-old sibyl,
or female prophet, using silk from sacred worms and dye extracted from the hearts of
mummified virgins. Othello claims that his mother used it to keep his father faithful to her, so,
to him, the handkerchief represents marital fidelity.

● The pattern of strawberries (dyed with virgins’ blood) on a white background strongly
suggests the bloodstains left on the sheets on a virgin’s wedding night, so the handkerchief
implicitly suggests a guarantee of virginity as well as fidelity.

● The significance of red is love, red strawberries like red hearts on the love token
handkerchief, and like the red stains from Othello and Desdemona's first night of love on the
marriage sheets. Such red on white is private and dear to the heart of Othello, and he expects
it to be similarly dear to his wife. It is the belief that Desdemona gave away his handkerchief,
and the sexually implications of the gift, that drives him to kill her.

The Song “Willow”

● As she prepares for bed in Act V, Desdemona sings a song about a woman who is betrayed
by her lover. She was taught the song by her mother’s maid, Barbary, who suffered a
misfortune similar to that of the woman in the song; she even died singing “Willow.”

● The song’s lyrics suggest that both men and women are unfaithful to one another. To
Desdemona, the song seems to represent a melancholy and resigned acceptance of her
alienation from Othello’s affections, and singing it leads her to question Emilia about the
nature and practice of infidelity.

The Danger of Isolation

● The action of Othello moves from the metropolis of Venice to the island of Cyprus. Protected
by military fortifications as well as by the forces of nature, Cyprus faces little threat from
external forces.

● Once Othello, Iago, Desdemona, Emilia, and Roderigo have come to Cyprus, they have
nothing to do but prey upon one another. Isolation enables many of the play’s most important
effects: Iago frequently speaks in soliloquies; Othello stands apart while Iago talks with
Cassio in Act IV, scene i, and is left alone onstage with the bodies of Emilia and Desdemona
for a few moments in Act V, scene ii; Roderigo seems attached to no one in the play except
Iago. And, most prominently, Othello is visibly isolated from the other characters by his
physical stature and the color of his skin.
 ● Iago is an expert at manipulating the distance between characters, isolating his victims so that
they fall prey to their own obsessions. At the same time, Iago, of necessity always standing
apart, falls prey to his own obsession with revenge.

● The characters cannot be islands, the play seems to say: self-isolation as an act of self-
preservation leads ultimately to self-destruction. Such self-isolation leads to the deaths of
Roderigo, Iago, Othello, and even Emilia.

Jealousy

● Jealousy motivates the central conflicts of Othello: Iago’s resentment of Othello, and Othello’s
suspicion of Desdemona.

● Iago is immediately revealed as a jealous character: in the first scene, he complains that
Cassio has been promoted instead of him even though “I am worth no worse a place” (1.1.).

● He also later implies that his hatred of Othello is rooted in jealousy, since there are rumors of
Othello having slept with Emilia. As Iago explains, even the hint of this possibility enrages
him: “I know not if’t be true / But I for mere suspicion in that kind / Will do as if for surety”
(1.3.).

● It seems that his jealousy is so intense that he does not need proof of this infidelity before
punishing Othello for it. Appropriately, Iago decides to seek revenge by using jealousy as a
weapon against Othello, “practicing upon his peace and quiet / Even to madness” (2.1.).

● Iago knows, perhaps from his own experience, that jealousy is a form of psychological torture
which will constantly torment Othello. By making Othello feel the torments of jealousy towards
Desdemona and her supposed lover, Iago causes Othello to suffer as much as he does.

● Jealousy is what appears to destroy Othello. It is the emotion suggested to him by Iago in Act
3, Scene 3. Iago thinks he knows jealousy, having rehearsed it in his relationship with Emilia
to the extent that Emilia believes jealousy is part of the personality of men, but Iago's jealousy
is a poor, weak thought compared to the storm of jealousy he stirs up in Othello.

● Iago has noticed Othello's tendency to insecurity and overreaction, but not even Iago
imagined Othello would go as far into jealousy as he did. Jealousy forces Othello's mind so
tightly on one idea, the idea that Desdemona has betrayed him with Cassio, that no other
assurance or explanation can penetrate. Such an obsession eclipses Othello's reason, his
common sense, and his respect for justice.

● Up to the moment he kills Desdemona, Othello's growing jealousy maddens him past the
recall of reason. Upon seeing that she was innocent and that he killed her unjustly, Othello
recovers. He can again see his life in proportion and grieve at the terrible thing he has done.
Once again, he speaks with calm rationality, judging and condemning and finally executing
himself.
The incompatibility of Military heroism, and love

● Othello above all is a soldier

● Desdemona is Othello's "fair warrior"

● He is happiest when he has her with him in the middle of military conquest or business.

● He predicates his success in love on his success as a soldier.