Othello Animal Imagery Essay

In the book “Othello” Shakespeare often uses animal imagery to illustrate Iago’s manipulation and control over other characters. Three points that prove the use of animal imagery to prove Iago’s superiority over the others is how Iago refers to Othello as a “Black Ram”, how Iago also refers to Othello as a “Barbary horse” and how Iago’s frequent use of animal imagery has now lead the characters to use animal imagery towards themselves. Shakespeare uses the help of animals to portray each of their characters. He makes Iago use the animals as an insulting way towards them; to show how little everyone else is compared to him. Iago often uses animal imagery to describe the other characters at the beginning of the play that latter on in it, the characters start using animal imagery towards them. This shows just how good Iago is at manipulating others. Iago refers to Othello as a “Black Ram” when he says, “an old black Ram is tupping your Ewe” ( ) to Brabantio. Shakespeare uses a black ram to show …show more content…
He uses racial slurs towards Othello to anger Brabantio. Iago says, “You’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll have coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.” ( ) Once again Othello is being compared to a type of horse which is brown to show that he is less than all the white people because of his colour. Iago is saying that Desdemona is having sex with a horse and that she needs someone better than Othello. Iago plants a seed in Brabantio’s head about Othello because he wants him to take action and divorce the two. Shakespeare uses animal imagery mostly to describe the sexual side of Othello and Desdemona’s relationship. He wants to make Iago look more and more evil and his evilness only gets worse throughout the