Resumo de Othello - Shakespeare

Shakespeare?s 27th play, Othello, tells the story of a marriage poisoned by doubt and acts of evil. The title character, Othello, a Moor and General of Venice, marries the young aristocrat Desdemona. Though their social status is entirely at odds, and though her father frowns severely on this marriage to a racial outsider, she loves Othello truly and follows him even on his military quest to Cyprus. But the couple?s happiness is ultimately destroyed by Iago, Othello?s ensign, who plots endlessly to bring ruin upon the Moor and his new bride.

Initially citing revenge as a motive, Iago explains that he is bitter at Othello who passed him over for promotion, making Cassio, a young and less experienced soldier, lieutenant instead. Iago quickly engineers Cassio?s dismissal with the unwitting but ill intended help of Roderigo, Desdemona?s wealthy rejected suitor. However, once Iago is promoted to lieutenant as he desired, he continues his plotting to ruin Othello and Desdemona, and it becomes clear that revenge was not his motivation after all.

Unsatisfied with merely displacing Cassio, Iago begins to provoke Othello?s jealousy, telling him that Desdemona and Cassio are secretly lovers. Though Othello briefly maintains trust in his wife, his self-doubt soon causes him to consider Iago?s claim. Asking for real evidence of her betrayal, Iago concocts a series of ?proofs?, the crux of which involves a handkerchief that was Othello?s first gift to Desdemona. Iago steals this handkerchief with the help of his wife and Desdemona?s attendant, Emilia, and arranges for Othello to see Cassio with it. Enraged by what he now considers absolute proof of his wife?s affair, Othello confronts her, strikes her, calls her a whore, and orders her to wait for him in bed alone, despite her protestations of innocence. When he returns to her later that night, he bends to kiss her and she awakes. Telling her that he intends to murder her, she asks for mercy and for the first time hears the accusations made against her. Though she denies every charge, Othello smothers her with her pillow. Moments later, he discovers Iago?s treachery and Desdemona?s innocence and stabs himself to death in grief.

Throughout the play, we grow to understand that Iago had no clear motive for his evil actions. Though he offers several explanations, none of them make sense in the broad context of the play save one: that he revels in causing pain to those who have beauty in their lives. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this play, though, is not the great and total acts of evil perpetrated by Iago, but the small acts of evil committed by other characters. For these acts facilitate Iago?s credibility and machinations: if Desdemona?s father did not warn Othello that she would betray him one day; if Roderigo did not unquestioningly help Iago; if Emilia did not steal the prized handkerchief and lie to Desdemona when she asked after it; if Othello did not lose all trust in his wife on the basis of flimsy evidence; if it were not for these unnecessary acts, Iago could never have caused Othello to murder his innocent wife. And though Iago demonstrates a rare type of evil which few of us will ever encounter, the others display acts of evil that are all the more dangerous for their commonness and subtlety.

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