Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Deception is commonly viewed as a partner of evil as seen in popular movies and read in numerous works of literature from all periods of time. Along with deceit feelings of jealousy often follow which in turn lead to anger and irrationality. In Shakespeare’s Othello these feelings of deceit and jealousy are prevalent throughout the entirety of the play as demonstrated by Iago and his actions taken against almost all of the characters.
The players in Othello fall victim to the actions of trickery and deception brought on by Iago. As he plays everyone from Othello to his own wife he twists and turns everyone against one another resulting in one of Shakespeare’s famous tragedies. Iago’s jealousy and anger leads him to begin his rampage of deceitfulness which was brought on by not being named for a high position in Othello’s army. Starting with Desdemona’s father Brabanzio he dives in and plays a card against Othello telling the father that his daughter plans to marry Othello. The comment of “you have lost half your soul” (Greenblatt 2102 ln 87) referring to the devil and the fact that as Othello is black and Desdemona is white, Iago is anticipating the outrage and hate Brabanzio will form against Othello. He finds out that his plan is in action once he hears Brabanzio’s replies of racism towards Othello and that he never truly thought he was a proper candidate for his daughter. This in turn confuses and upsets Othello who thought they were friends as he defends his thoughts in front of the council of Vienna. He abruptly realizes that his friendship with Brabanzio is no longer so and is still unaware of Iago’s actions.
Once he has started his pile into deception Iago moves onto a higher target and more victims. Being a highly intelligent man he is confident in his trickery not being caught and being able to continue praying on others in order to achieve his desired revenge. Iago plays Rodrigo as well by using his smarts to see that he would...