This tragedy is divided into two parts.

FIRST PART

SECOND PART

Second Act. This act takes place in Cyprus where the public figure of Othello is being questioned and the tragedy starts. Cassio is dismissed and Iago advises him to seek Desdemona’s help.

Themes

The main theme is the way in which a jealous villain succeeds in infecting an essentially noble man with his own jealousy and, in so doing, drags him down to his own level. This tragedy is linked to positive and negative forces, to Othello’s and Desdemona’s love that triumphs over their cultural and racial differences, to Othello’s blackness and ingenuity and Iago’s whiteness and perversity, to the analysis of the most typical love pattern, the triangle:

AGONIST (Othello) -ANTAGONIST (Iago) - OBJECT OF DESIRE (Desdemona)

Othello and Iago are two opposite poles: the meeting and the contrast between them creates the tragedy. The former longs for Desdemona in a pure way, the latter morbidly; degrading Desdemona is a way to destroy Othello’s object of desire. In this way Iago accomplishes his revenge on Othello.

Their relationship represents a series of antitheses: black/white, master/servant, elected/damned.

Iago and Othello

At the beginning of the tragedy, the black Othello is the champion of honesty and he, a "barbarian", behaves like a perfect Christian; in contrast the white Iago has a black soul, he is a sort of joker who plots a cruel mockery to express his power. Othello feels emotions, sensations, true and absolute passions whereas Iago invents false passions for himself. His plan to cause Othello’s jealousy has no true justification, no purpose and no logic. At the end Iago is the real loser: he is obliged to face his reality and to drop the mask of the "honest Iago". He seals his defeat by refusing to speak and taking shelter in silence. Othello is a linear character, he considers the world made up of absolute values. When his order is shattered by Desdemona’s alleged adultery, when his harmony is destroyed by chaos, he must re-establish order by eliminating the destructive element, Desdemona. He does not kill to avenge his honour, he plays the ceremonial role of a priest who has to recreate the lost harmony. Later when he understands he has killed an innocent woman, breaking the order he wanted to re-establish, committing a murder and not a sacrifice, he eliminates the cause of the violated harmony by killing himself.

Style

Othello is the most perfectly constructed of all Shakespeare’s tragedies, and may be best used to illustrate the four different kinds of dramatic speech: lyric poetry, rhyme, blank verse, prose. All are used in the play with the greatest artistry and produce particular effects of tone, mood, and atmosphere. The contrast between Iago and Othello is underlined by the use of two different styles of language: Othello uses typical Renaissance language full of mythological images and cosmological allusions; it has been called "musical" because of the elevated tone of the poetry he uses. However it is the unnatural language of a foreigner who "loads" his language with great words and hyperbole. At the end, after the reversal of roles, Othello speaks and almost becomes like Iago, losing his identity. The prose of Iago contrasts with the formal and ponderous poetry of Othello: his "voice" is intellectual, controlled, cynical, brutal, and full of litotes, which deny the evidence and create false statements. It is Iago who takes advantage of the lack of communication, creating a mock-communication, with which it is possible to triumph over Othello and others.

Unlike Juliet, who assumes a role traditionally played by men in making decisions, Desdemona is presented as a simple object of desire and jealousy throughout the tragedy. The love which ties Romeo and Juliet overcomes every obstacle, and death seems no longer an enemy since it finally brings them together. The love between Othello and Desdemona is different. Othello’s love is possession, selfishness, a simple desire to control his partner; Desdemona feels a more sincere and confident love to such an extent that she lets herself be guided by her husband blindly. Juliet and Desdemona are highly sensual and romantic; since her first meeting with Romeo, Juliet does not behave according to the social conventions and shows great sensuality in Act 3, Scene 2 where she anxiously waits for Romeo’s arrival and begs the night to come and bring him to her. On the contrary Desdemona is presented from two different points of view: through Iago’s vulgar remarks and Othello’ s praise of her beauty and innocence. Juliet and Desdemona are passionate and use poetry. Juliet reveals her maturity and grasps reality in her speeches: she loves Romeo but the first obstacle to their love is his name, which is pure appearance. Desdemona’s voice is calm, assertive and becomes uneasy only when Othello is away. Even with the other characters communication is not total because she is too pure and innocent to understand their falsity. After reaching the peak of love and happiness, they start a decline towards their death, with the consequent passage from Love to Death. Juliet reaches the top of the line after the wedding with Romeo; her decline starts when Romeo is banished from Verona: her death may appear to be a punishment, since she has violated the social conventions of her age. Desdemona’s tragedy starts in the third act: she suffers from a sort of naive regression and she speaks and acts like a little girl. While Othello is strangling her, she withdraws into an obstinate incredulity: her death, like Juliet’s, may be seen as a punishment for having married the Moor secretly.

Dramatic tension