Marriage is a part of life. Something that many people, if not everybody, look foward to. Marriage is a sacred thing, it is when two people dedicate their life to their love of their life. Your whole life revolves around it as evrything you do and evrything that happens affects your marriage. It is dedication, to live your whole life next to your partner making tough and easy decicions. There are going to be good times and there are going to be tough and difficult times. Regardless of what comes, you stick through it and side by side you support each other and stay together.
Or do you? Many times the struggles and the pressure is too much for many marriages. The experiences that they go through is sometimes too much for a couple to handle and this causes a lot of stress and problems between the two. Sometimes the problems are so strong that it brakes up the marriage and they both go their seperate ways. Maybe their love wasn’t strong enough. Maybe their commitment wasn’t strong enough. Depending on your definition of love. Love can be very tricky sometimes. It can evenm blid a man from seing reality and it takes him far apart from the real world.
He lives in a strange state of mind where what seems obvious to everybody else, can be overlooked by his or her love. Shakespeare uses jeoulousy as the biggest test of love in the book Othello. Is jeoulousy strong enogh to brake a marriage such as the one between Othello and Desdemona. They are both deeply in love with each other. How about love being blind? Was Emilia blind from reality because she was so in love with her husband Iago? We have learned the tragical ending of the book. Unfortunate ending for both marriages. Before discussing the ending, lets discuss the facts and the event that lead up to the ending.
What was it that caused such a tragic ending? We already know that Desdemona was devoted to the love of her life, Othello, the General that made his friend Cassio Lt. So why would Iago want to brake up the marriage of Othello and Desdemona? Othello and Cassio were really close friends for many years. Cassio was the one that helped Othello get Desdemona’s love. Iago, was also Othello’s friend, and Othello did trust him a lot. Knowing all of this, it becomes more clear why Iago would use Cassio in his plan. What was Iago’s purpose? Was he really in love with Desdemona? If he was, then that would explain why he wanted to brake them up.
These days, when a person is being unfaithful, it is resolved by getting devorced. Unless the person you are with is a psycho. Chances are, you will still be alive. Back in the days of Othello, it was a differet situation with adifferent outcome. Iago did know that Othello would become so outraged that he would kill both Cassio and Desdemona. So he wanting to get with Desdemona doesn’t make much since. If he really did, he would just want to get rid od of Othello only. This way, desdemona would be free for him to make his move with Othello out of the way. That’s the main reason why Iago wasn’t probably looking to get with Desdemona.
He would have had a better plan. One where desdemona’s life would not be endangered. What was it then? What was it that motivated him? We know that when Othello made Cassio Leutenant, Iago was outraged with jealousy. What had brought him and Othello so close together in the first place was the fact that they were both from the same class. They were both poor when growing up compared to Cassio who had enough money to go to an expensive school and prepare himself with a carreer. This is why Othello and Iago were close. Mainly because they understood each other. This brought them together.
Just the same way that people of the same race might stick together. iago felt betrayed when Othello made Cassio Leutenant. He was jealous of both Cassio, and Othello. mainly because of his achievement. Othello was a very blessed man. He was a man with power, he was the General, and he was married to a beatiful woman, the love of his life. What better way to get rid of these two guys who are friends then to put a woman in between them so that they destroy each other? This is what was going through Othello’s mind. This was the only way that he could achieve his goal. This was the only way that he could ever become General.
This was his motivation. He was greedy. He was so greedy that it drove him wild and he became insane. So selfish and jealous was Iago that he did not care what the cost of it all was. He would rule as General even if it meant lying to your wife, and your friends who so naively put their trust and their fate in his hands. Iago began to plan his scheme. He took advantage of the trust that Othello had in him and went on with his plan. Iago used his own wife who got the handkerchief as part of his plan. He begged her to get the handkerchief for him. Emilia probably didn’t even know what the purpose of it was.
She still did it anyway. This is where love played a big part in Emilia. She was so blindly in love with him that she would not admit that her husband was up to no good. She in fact, would cover up for him if she had to. Iago’s plan was brilliant. He was bringing apart two life long friends. Considering that they were such good friends, it must have been harder. You would think that it would be almost impossible to brake two great friends apart. Much less brake up two people in love. All Iago needed to do was make Othello see Cassio with the handkerchief in his hands and Othello was convinced that his wife was a strumpet.
Not only was Othello doubting now, he was now convinced. Othello tried to believe otherwise. He even asked Emilia if she had noticed anythig strange between Cassio and Desdemona. However, the evil was already in him The doubt already had possed him and he could no longer believe anything in favor of his wife. Othello then decided he would kill Cassio. In the end, Othello ended up killing Desdemona in a very dramatic scene. Once Emilia heard Othello’s reasons, she defended her ladies honor and stood up to her. “Cassio did top her. Ask thy husband else.
O, I were damned beneath all depth in hell But that I did proceed upon just grounds To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all. ” Emilia asked: “My husband? ” Othello approved. She asked yet again. Emilia, so in love with her husband, she was blind to see that her husband had been giving Othello negative feedback. Fearing that she would reveal the truth, Iago ordered her to go home. However, she let Othello know that Iago had lied. “Tis pitiful. But yet Iago knows that she with Cassio hath the act of shame a thousnad times committed.
Cassio confesed it, And she did gratify ihs amorous works With that recognizance and pledge of love Which I first gave her. I saw it in his hand. It was a handkerchief, an antique token my father gave my mother. ” This was Othello responding by telling her that Cassio had admited to it and that he had sened the handkerchief in his hand. Emilia was surprised at this and she knew what Iago had done. Iago adviced her to be wise and go home. However, Emilia confesed. “O thou dull Moor, that handkerchief thou speak’st of i found by fortune, and did give my husband… he begged for me to steal’t. ” Once othello had found the truth it was too late.
He had already killed his inocent wife. There was no more reason to keep living now. emilia was killed by her husband, and Othello killed himself. Iago’s plan completely backfired as Cassio turned out to be the new General. Iago was probably killed. this was the tragic end of both marriages in the book. Shakespeare didn’t think that love was strong enough to over come a man’s jealousy, a man’s greedyness, and a woman’s ignorance. Love is based on trust. if there is no trust in a relationship, you have nothing. the same went for Othello and Desdemona. there was no trust in that relationship. Since there was no trust, there was nothing.