Othello Speech

Revenge and manipulation still exist in today's day and age therefore each of us can understand where Shakespeare is coming from. Within William Shakespeare's play "Othello", we as the audience witness the many times that Othello himself have been manipulated. Iago plants the seed of doubt into Othello's mind telling him that his wife Desdemona is supposedly cheating on him. All those nagging thoughts and doubts that so often clench the back of our heads, do they have any sense of truth behind them? All those times we saw the things that we did in a negative light, were they just influenced by a third party? In Rod Quin's piece "Getting a Handle on Othello as Tragedy" he talks about the concept of us as human beings being able to control our fate. He says "Humanism emphasising human's control of and responsibility for their own destiny"; this tells us that theoretically what we think, our state of mind and the way that we make decisions do determine the happenings in our future.

Through the traditional five act play, Shakespeare is able to install the elements of jealousy, deception, revenge, honesty, purity, manipulation and greed. Effectively, each character possesses one or more of these qualities, each defining them. I can honestly say that every single person in this room at this very moment attain one or more of these characteristics. Now I'm not saying it is a bad thing because these things denote human nature. You see, Shakespeare often wrote his plays with the intention of portraying the disposition of human beings. From the things we say, the actions that we partake, down to the little gestures that our body makes; other peers judge us on all these things. Sometimes the things that we do may spark a feeling of displeasure in the people around us.

This is where we come back to Othello. The core reason as to why Othello had been held up against for revenge is because of his inconsiderate decisions. Though at the time he may have thought that selecting Cassio was the right thing to do, he did not stop to think and look back on how anyone else would feel. How would you feel if you put in twice the amount of work and sacrificed double what the other person was putting in, yet your teacher, parents, boss or whomever it may be were oblivious to your efforts? They did not acknowledge your goals but instead focused on another person's, even though you were right under their nose? Wouldn't you feel some kind of anger and betrayal? Well now that you're put into the shoes of Iago, we can apprehend what is going on in his mind. Because Iago felt immensely angered, he decided to act upon it. This is what we call revenge and this is one important component that we should take note of. Iago felt the need to get back at Othello for his ignorance and at Cassio because he got the role of lieutenant, "In personal suit to make me his lieutenant... I know my price, I am worth no worse a place,"

From the beginning, we see that Iago is anything but honest. He manipulates everyone in his way, even being Emilia the love of his life. In Carol Thomas Neely's