Montano, the governor, is stabbed during his attempt to contain Cassio. Othello is angered by the fight and blames Cassio, stripping him of his recently conferred officer status. The next day, Iago convinces Cassio to ask Desdemona for help in regaining his post.
When Cassio asks, Desdemona innocently agrees. With no reason to suspect Iago of bad intentions, Othello begins to watch his wife. Othello becomes angry when Desdemona cannot find the first gift a handkerchief he had ever given her. The handkerchief is embroidered with strawberries and especially important to Othello. But Desdemona had not lost the handkerchief. Iago had instructed Emilia, his wife, to take it.
Iago then hid the handkerchief where Cassio would find it. Iago continues to inflame this jealousy. He encourages Othello to listen in on, and misinterpret, part of a conversation between Cassio and his mistress, Bianca. Cassio and Bianca discuss how Cassio obtained the embroidered handkerchief that he then gives to Bianca to copy. After recovering, he orders Iago to kill Cassio.
Desdemona cannot understand Othello's change of attitude towards her. Othello even strikes her in the presence of her relative, Lodovico, who has arrived as an ambassador from Venice. As she prepares for bed, she talks with Emilia, singing to relieve the distress she feels at losing the trust of her husband. Meanwhile, Roderigo has begun to suspect Iago is not quite the friend he seems.
Still Iago persuades him to attack Cassio that night again, to be able to court Desdemona. In the fight that ensues, Iago goes undetected and wounds Cassio. He then enters again as himself to accuse and kill Roderigo for the act of wounding Cassio. Othello comes to his sleeping wife's bedroom to murder her as punishment for her supposed adultery.
A Moor could help you out in your war against the Turk — or, for that matter, the Spaniard. At the end of Alcazar, the evil Moor Muly Mahamet is defeated. His Ambassador, Abd el-Oahed ben Messaoud, visited the Elizabethan court in in order to explore the possibility of forming an alliance to conquer Spain with a mixture of the English navy and African troops. The surviving portrait of the Ambassador is perhaps the best image we have of what Shakespeare intended Othello to look like.
Audiences would have come to The Moor of Venice with the expectation of something similar, but witnessed a remarkable inversion whereby a sophisticated Venetian is the one who comes to be associated with the devil and damnable actions. Depriving someone of their name and referring to them solely in terms of their ethnic origin is a classic form of racism.
But we may also legitimately consider what Shakespeare revealed about himself when he adapted and interpreted the original story by Cinthio… one of the main effects of his changes is to emphasise the racial element in the play. In other words, Shakespeare suggests that Othello behaves as he does because he is black.
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News categories. Other top stories on FutureLearn. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Why does Iago hate Othello? How does Emilia help Iago? How does Iago use Bianca to trick Othello? Why does Iago hate Cassio?
Why does Roderigo wake up Brabantio? Why does Othello go to Cyprus? Why does Roderigo agree to kill Cassio? Does Cassio die? How does Roderigo die? Does Othello kill Desdemona?
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