Essay: Keep jealousy at bay, share your feelings: William Shakespeare’s Othello Analyses

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without
deserving.” This a quote that William Shakespeare wrote when he has created the “Tragedy of
Othello” and with that, readers would ask what the purpose of this writing would be. The grand
message the author wants to teach its readers is the human emotion itself. Through things like
revenge, jealousy, and even miscommunication, these things can lead to disastrous events to lead
towards a tragedy similar to the ending of Othello. The author portrays these emotions and
lessons to the reader because he wanted to show the reader how to also become a better person.
If Othello, or anyone in that matter were to just express how they felt rather than to just assume,
then it would have been possible to not end in such a way as Othello has. Through these three
lessons the author tries to tell the reader how to become more enlightened and show how the
world can truly be.
Revenge can be a somewhat complicated and usually horrendous move one takes to act
towards someone who has done them wrong. William Shakespeare tries to explain how revenge
can turn out in his play the “Tragedy of Othello” by explaining how revenge can lead towards
not the death of others but to the death of oneself as well. What the author is portraying towards
the reader is that anyone should not seek revenge towards a person because it would end
tragically for them. In the end of Othello, Othello figures out that he was deceived by Iago which
helped Othello seek revenge. What this does in turn is blind him from seeing the truth.
Shakespeare’s purpose in Othello was to tell the reader that revenge can make us blind from
seeing the truth towards a situation. An example of this is “I am not what I am.” By this quote it
shows to the reader that revenge can make people do uttermost disgusting things and in Othello’s

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO ANALYSYS 4
case, murder his wife. Or for Iago to create this plot against Othello or even for the reader to do
something that they might forever regret. This gives the reader a better understanding of the
world because Othello shows that revenge is wrong no matter what. Like it is said many times
“An eye for an eye makes the world go blind.” As for revenge jealousy is also a lesson that
Shakespeare wanted to teach the readers.
Jealousy can make the nicest of people into monsters that they never thought of ever
becoming. Such is the case with Shakespeare’s Othello play. His message to the readers is that
one shouldn’t be jealous if there were to be no reasonable cause of such things. In Othello,
Desdemona was a kind and gentle woman who was faithful to Othello, but it was Othello who
was jealous due to his ancient Iago. In the end jealousy got the better of him and it led towards a
tragedy. Shakespeare explains that jealousy can also blind us but in a different matter. A quote
from that play was “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster which doth
mock the meat it feeds on.” What this quote means is that jealousy can control people and make
them do rash things that one would not think of doing. It is only normal to be jealous of people
because it is only human, but to that extreme it can be very, very dangerous. As someone loves
another person its bound to happen that one person or the other would get jealous. Shakespeare
explains that it can end that love or even friendship because he writes “Jealousy is always born
with love, but always does not die with it.” What Shakespeare is telling the reader is that
jealousy can end any relationship whether in separation or in Othello, death. Love can or will be
lost when jealousy arises. Though this, the reader can have a better understanding one should not
be jealous of a person no matter who they would be. A person should accept themselves and
others on who they are. They should never jump to bad conclusions because of different

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO ANALYSYS 5
assumptions made by others or even with themselves. Jealousy can also be due to the fact of
miscommunication from a person which Shakespeare also tells the reader.
Miscommunication is one of the biggest problems that still happen to this day whether in
a friendship, relationship, or even in politics. Shakespeare has written a whole play about that
very situation when he has written Othello. The story is about miscommunication and it teaches
the reader that miscommunication is not only wrong, but it can lead to wrong things. If Othello
was to talk to Desdemona or Cassio, or even Iago’s wife, the outcome of the play would have not
ended in that way. This teaches the readers that it is important to not only communicate with one
another, but to tell how you feel about a particular situation. It is wrong to lead straight to anger
without telling someone why you would be angry at them. A quote that can tell the main plot to
Othello and tell the reader what the story is about is, “Thou weigh’st thy words before thou
givest them breath.” This means that anyone in general must thing about that they must say for
their words have a heavy impact or outcome in the future of saying so. This helps enlighten the
reader and become a wiser person overall because Othello teaches the importance of
communicating with someone about things like, feelings, what he or she has said, and why
someone would do an action they may or may not like at all.
To conclude this paper, the purpose of Shakespeare’s play the “Tragedy of Othello” is to
teach the readers about key points about our world and about people’s emotions such as revenge,
jealousy, and miscommunication. The readers after reading this would know that revenge is
wrong, jealousy would get the best of them if they do not control it, and it is best to communicate
with one another no matter what the subject might be for them. Overall, the reader would be
more likely enlightened because he or she now knows how to prevent such things from occurring
to them for now and in the future.