Iago! Iago Iago Bo Bago Banana Fana Fo Fago Fee Fye Mo Mago, Iago!
Othello by William Shakespeare is an incredibly tragic tale full of chain reactions that eventually lead to Othello’s suicide. Many say that Othello is the reason for his own death, through his unfortunate hamartia, that is his extreme trusting in others and constant jealousy between Desdemona and Cassio. I personally believe that it is Iago’s fault for Othello’s unfortunate downfall.
First of all, Othello not choosing Iago as his lieutenant and Iago wanting revenge is clearly not Othello’s downfall. This is the action that started Iago’s hatred, but you would not blame a woman for a boy getting angry for rejecting him. Just from the beginning it is shown that it is Iago’s fault. It is Iago’s fault that Othello murdered Desdemona and killed himself because he continued to start chain reactions to lead Othello to his end.
At the beginning, Iago is complaining to Roderigo, and they eventually wake Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, and gets him angered. Once they find the newlyweds, Othello and Desdemona, Brabantio lost loyalty in his daughter. Though Brabantio would have eventually found out, Iago woke him out of bed very loudly to get him flustered and frustrated.
The following events that Iago wanted to ignite were some part of fate. Where the war ended and they had a party, where Iago got Cassio drunk and he started a fight, resulting in his unemployment. The next events were where Iago’s plan started to fall into action. With Othello’s already grown hatred for Cassio, Iago had a clear window to use that to his advantage. He tells Othello that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, and his devotion to Iago’s truthfulness unfortunately adds to Othello’s downfall. Though, this devotion does not show Othello as the cause of why he committed murder and suicide.
The planting of the handkerchief and the constant reminders to Othello about his unfaithful wife (even though she did not have the alleged affair), led Othello to his unfortunate end of his life. The reason he knew about this was from Iago, and Iago clearly wanted to make Othello lose his mind. Iago is the clear reason why Othello ended his life because he had gotten angry because he was not promoted.
As a grown man, it is Iago to blame for Othello’s misfortune because one would not usually try to bring death or misfortune among someone because they did not give them a job they wanted. Telling a man that his wife is unfaithful, causing him to smother her in their own bed, is not a clear way of thinking. Constantly wanting death and pain on people is one’s own fault, not the fault of others.
Overall, it is Iago’s fault that the play ended so tragically. Through multiple nervous breakdowns from Othello, all because of Iago’s words, and Desdemona being murdered in a very devious way, which was also Iago’s idea, was clearly Iago’s fault. Though Othello did not give Iago a job, a grown man would not wish death upon so many people because of that.
Your introduction to the blog post was a very interesting I honestly was not expecting to see anything like that, but it was very enjoyable. It was very creative and also very funny. Who would have thought The Office could explain Othello so well? It would be interesting to see if you can do this with other works of literature. But in regards to the blog post itself you introduced some good arguments on why you believe Iago is to blame for the tragedy. You talked of how Othello did not make Iago upset about not getting the job as lieutenant, Iago did that on his own. He did not have to get mad, he chose to be mad. And he was also the one wh decided to act out on that anger. A large portion of his plan falling through was because of fate. Iago initiated a plan but with the help of luck his plan was carried out in ways that were better than he predicted. All the characters were affected by the actions of Iago and the tradegy at the end all goes back to hi deciding that he wanted to take Othello down. Some quotations would have been helpful but overall this response was well written.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love the introduction to your blog. I hadn't even started reading your response and I was already laughing. However I fully agree with you that this whole mess that is called Othello is Iagos fault. similar to you in my blog post i brought up how Barbantio had said that Desdemona would betray Othello eventually. You fully explained how every characters downfall was essentially caused by Iago. Iago ruined Cassio by getting him fired, he ruined Desdemona and Othellos marriage by creating rumors that Desdemona had slept with Cassio. Overall you did a great job with convincing me that Iago is the root of all of the problems.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! I agree strongly with your argument; I felt that Iago was to blame too, as Othello was rather unknowing as to what was going on. Your post was well written, creative, and entertaining, and you provided a good basis for each argument.
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