Examples Of Cowardice In Othello

Othello’s Cowardice Othello started out as a man of great respect; someone who seemed noble and responsible, but as the story went on, he began to be poisoned by the lies told by Iago. He went from being the Hero to being the Fool. Now, how was such a good man tainted? It’s simple really. Othello listened to each and every lie Iago poured into his mind and didn’t doubt him all but once, as Iago was ‘’honest’ and one of his oldest friends. In the novel Othello by William Shakespeare, the star character: Othello, a man of a pristine reputation, was tainted. He became pitiful, ruthless, and cowardly by the time the play script had ended. All because of a few simple lies. The lies Iago spread very clearly contaminated Othello. Using two quotes from the script, it is an easy foil on the currently pitiful Othello with his noble past self. At the beginning of the play, Othello declares his everlasting love for Desdemona by stating, “She loved me for the dangers I had passed and I loved her for that she did pity them” (1.3.171-172) and then seeing him say this,

He kills the love of his life while blinded with false anger and jealousy, only to find out all of the betrayal was fake. He finally has actual suspicions when Emilia, the wife of Iago, reacts by saying, “If he say so, may his pernicious soul Rot half a grain a day! He lies to th ' heart. She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.” (5.2.166). Even as Emilia is finally clearing his vision, he draws his sword at her, refusing to believe that he’d killed the love of his life for nothing but lies. He only truly accepts his wrong doings when Iago tells him that all of those ‘truths’ he said of Desdemona’s cheating were actually lies. He ends up doing one of the most cowardly things he could do in the situation in that moment of time, killing himself; “Stabs himself”(5.2.370). Instead of living with his crime of killing Desdemona, he slaughters himself. That is precisely why he is a