Mirror, Mirror on The Wall, Who Is the Most Jealous of Them All?

The Shakespearean play Othello is driven by a great love story filled with jealousy. In the play, jealousy, through the contrast of Othello’s simple nature and Iago’s vicious villainy, will be the cause behind all the events that will lead the characters, and especially Othello, to their tragic downfall.

The play depicts how jealousy is the most destructive and corruptive of all emotions. Othello being above Iago in many ways, military rank and his marriage with Desdemona, brings out his jealousy that will drive his plot to bring down Othello. Shakespeare portrays with his characters the evil existing in the society because of jealousy. Jealousy being an emotion, society can be lead to its destruction because of it.

Jealousy seems to dominate Othello, which will only bring him suffering, misfortune and death. Iago is very clever, he knows very well the love his general has for his wife, Desdemona. A marriage based on mutual awareness and trust, in other words a love that is not only based on lust. A love surpassing the physical appearance and age. But Iago also knows that Othello his unconfident because he is a Moor, he is not that young and more importantly he is very naïve. Being in a constant state of jealousy he will use Othello’s insecurities by inventing an affair between Desdemona and the young Cassio

(whom he is also jealous of since he had the position of lieutenant). Because of this little evil scheme, Desdemona will get killed by her jealous husband even though she was innocent. When someone is driven by jealousy, one becomes very selfish and does not think about the consequences, that innocents will get hurt.

Shakespeare uses Iago to prove that usually closes friends are those who envy the most their successful “friends”. Being very close to the protagonist of the play, Iago has seen his rising to the top of the society despite his different ethnicity. Some people will be jealous in a positive way: they will be happy for the success of their relative and will be determined to reach the top but in a fair way: by working hard. However, some people, Iago being the best example, do not have a good heart. They will not have the intelligence to say: “I can do it too”. They will only be blaming faith, and everyone surrounding them and will be driven by a destructive jealousy and have one thing in my mind stab their successful “friend” in the back. Usually when someone does that, the person has two faces to fool people and not get caught. Through this character clearly Shakespeare sends the message: “be wary of appearances”.

In conclusion, the play showed that jealousy is one of the human’s biggest flaws and that it can lead to many consequences. It can destroy marriages, friendships.

It can lead to death, the death of innocent people. Jealousy can drive people to their downfall.

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