In Shakespeare’s Othello, persuasion and manipulation are themes throughout the play. Othello is the leader of the Venetian army who secretly marries the beautiful and sought-after Desdemona. His trusted advisor, Iago, secretly hates Othello and is very jealous of his life. Iago manipulates a man named Roderigo, who is in love with Desdemona and has hired Iago to help him get closer to her, in order to hurt Othello. Iago also manipulates Cassio, the lieutenant and second in command, and uses him as part of his plot to take down Othello. In the play Othello, Shakespeare demonstrates how a person’s ability to persuade and manipulate people lies in one’s ability to identify and exploit insecurities of others by planting seeds of truth to grow these insecurities and how the evil motives of a person can lead to evil outcomes like murder, suicide, and punishment.
In Othello, Shakespeare’s uses his characters to exploit other characters’ insecurities. The character Iago knows that Othello is a jealous person, so he decides to use that jealousy to ruin him. Iago tells Othello that he has seen Cassio and Desdemona together, to which Othello responds, “I heard thee say even now, thou lik’st not that,/ When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?”(III.3.125-129). Othello is expressing that this news about Cassio and his wife makes him uncomfortable. Iago notices that he has successfully triggered his insecurity, and decides to continue to exploit this flaw in Othello to take him