Othello is the fifth of Shakespeare’s Tragedies written circa 1604-5. Rather than an historical, it is a domestic tragedy in which a great man suffers a reversal of fortune in his personal life due to a weakness – his naivety or credulity.

The play is set in Italy, at this time not yet a nation state, rather a collection of City States with Venice one of the more powerful ones. Venice represents the centre of power, civilisation, culture and order. Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean is one of its colonial outposts under threat from the Turks and represents insecurity, danger, uncivilised society. Othello himself is an outsider and therefore while accepted militarily, not socially.

His miscegenous (mixed race) marriage to Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio, is not well accepted in Venetian society especially by Othello’s ensign , Iago, one of Shakespeare’s most charismatically evil constructs. It doesn’t help that Iago has just been passed over for a promotion and covertly plots revenge against Othello for this slight. Othello claims to be a soldier, not a lover and unfortunately that turns out to be true; he utterly fails as a lover.

The play painfully demonstrates how intrigue, fear, jealousy and misguided morality can lead to human tragedy.

DESDEMONA:

CASSIO calls her:

The divine Desdemona.

Desdemona is a gutsy young woman who defies her father and society’s norms by eloping with a middle-aged black soldier. Hardly a wilting violet. Betrayed by the evil malice of Iago, she is murdered by her husband, but with her dying breath tries to save his life.

When asked, ‘Who hath done this deed,’ she replies,

‘Nobody; I myself; Farewell; Commend to be to my kind Lord.’

When Emilia discovers that he has killed her mistress Desdemona, she rounds on Othello:

‘Oh, the more angel she,
And you the blacker devil!
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain…O gull! O dolt!
As ignorant as dirt!
O murderous coxcomb! What would such a fool
Do with so good a wife?’

Emilia embodies some of the most admirable qualities of Shakespeare’s women: down-to-earth, practical, brave and passionate, warm and humorous and possessing an integrity notably lacking in the menfolk. She displays a tone of homely outrage and blunt honesty in their condemnation of male arrogance.