Jealousy And Revenge In Othello

In 1603, the master of literary tragedies struck again. The result was in the form of the play called Othello. This is the embodiment of jealousy and betrayal in literature, or why else do you think jealousy was renamed as ‘the green-eyed monster?’ Shakespeare does not hesitate to do what he does in other plays, have the hero dead at the end of the story, and this time he uses jealousy as the weapon.
Unlike in many tragedies which begin with “the ancillary figures commenting on the character who will turn out to be at the center of the tragedy” (Adelman, 125) ‘Othello’ begins with the antagonist villain, Iago. The initial setting is at Venice but the most of the play later happens at Cypress. Iago’s woes involve the general Othello’s decision to appoint his nemesis, Cassio, as the lieutenant. He therefore engineers a meticulous plan for revenge to vent out his hatred for Othello. The plan involves several well-orchestrated acts and some bit of fate working for Iago. First, he plants seeds of doubt into Othello, making him question his wife’s fidelity and uses that as a tool for him to be instituted as the general’s lieutenant. Secondly, he successfully manages to use Roderigo’s obsession with Othello’s wife to have Cassio eliminated before

Initially, he is skeptical of the claim that Desdemona is unfaithful because he believes that his wife had eyes when she chose him and therefore he needs tangible proof to establish that. It turns out that the evidence is circumstantial, including the conversation in which Iago implicates Cassio. The handkerchief that Iago plants on Cassio becomes a source of jealousy for both Othello and Bianca, Cassio’s girlfriend. It is no surprise that Iago is at the center of all jealousy related conflicts in this story. He has mastered the art of manipulating people using their emotions even getting to the point of being the most trusted by the very people he seeks to