Theme Of Revenge In Othello

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on…” (Shakespeare. 3. 3. 48). In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is a very vindictive and manipulative person and is able to manipulate everyone in a successful ploy to ruin Othello’s life. He verbalizes that his motivation for getting revenge on Othello is because Othello gives Cassio, rather than Iago, the position Iago thinks he deserved, but it goes much deeper than that. Iago is driven by jealousy to seek revenge because Othello has more power, a better marriage, and Othello has more achievements and gets more recognition for them. After Iago becomes Othello’s lieutenant, he chooses not to end his revenge at this point, even though he could have, because of his envy of Othello. Iago is very envious of the power Othello has. Othello is a foreigner in Venice, and the amount of power and respect he has acquired as a foreigner is much more than what Iago has acquired and this angers Iago very much because he thinks Othello is

Iago’s jealousy is essentially what creates the whole play of Othello. His jealousy is what motivates him to start manipulating everyone in order to get revenge. His actions done in jealousy cause multiple deaths and make a great man turn into an insecure and irrational one. He creates a domino effect in which every action has a consequence that benefits him but slowly ruins everyone around him. Iago tells Othello to beware of jealousy because “..it is the green-eyed monster…” (Shakespeare. 3. 3. 48), when actually he needs that advice more than Othello. Even though Iago never fully admits his motives for what he did, his jealousy of Othello is clearly a motive rather than just being passed for a position, because when he gets the position he wants, he still seeks out