Theme Of Deception In Shakespeare's Othello

Deception is usually considered immoral. Yet most people tend to deceive someone regularly. They might not realize it, but their act of deception can cause an extreme deal of trouble for others – even if it is something significantly unimportant. The same concept occurred during Shakespeare’s Othello. Deception is commonly viewed in a negative manner but this is not exclusively the case in Shakespeare’s Othello. In Othello, there are two types of deception. Sometimes a character deceives another, but with harmless intentions, whereas most of the times a character belies another with the sole purpose of hurting them. Shakespeare shows Desdemona, Othello’s wife, as the first character to deceive another. She does so by sneaking behind the back …show more content…
In fact, every character in the play has referred to him as “honest Iago”. This proves that he is deceptive because he has managed to manipulate every single character into thinking he is the good guy, yet he is the villain. Shakespeare might have used repetition of the word “honest” to accentuate the extent of the characters’ trust in Iago. However, that trust had consequences. For instance, when Othello says ' 'This fellows of exceeding honesty and knows all quantities, with a learned spirit of human dealings. If I do prove her haggerd, though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings, i 'd whistle her off and let her down the wind to prey at fortune. ' ' (III. III. ). Here Shakespeare shows the audience how sneakily Iago managed to manipulate Othello. Only a couple of lines back, Othello had said to Iago “No, Iago, I’ll see before I doubt, when I doubt, prove, And on the proof there is no more but this: Away at once with love or jealousy!” ( ). Othello means that the only way he would suspect Desdemona is if he had solid proof, yet somehow Iago still managed to make Othello jealous and suspicious. Iago is the biggest example of bad deception in the entire play. He deceives others solely to ruin their happiness. Not only that, but he also never clearly reveals his motives behind his plans. Why does he want to destroy Othello’s life? As far as the audience know, the only …show more content…
For example when Cassio lied to Bianca saying he was going to marry her, when he was not planning that at all. Emilia stole Desdemona’s handkerchief, thinking it was not very important, but the disappearance of that handkerchief led to Desdemona’s death. Even good deception can have harmful consequences. When Desdemona hid her marriage with Othello from her father, even though she had good intentions, Othello later used her act of deception as a reason of her betrayal. However, the recurrence of deception in Shakespeare’s Othello connected the play together. Iago somehow managed to maneuver each character’s actions so that they would never find out the truth. Although in a way, deception was the true villain in Othello. If each character had not committed their small acts of deception, the play would not be a tragedy at