Iago
Thomas Rymer I believe does an excellent job on this critic of Othello. The first two paragraphs he deals with include two very important pieces of Othello that differ from the original Cinthio narrative, one being naming Othello the Moor of Venice instead of simply the Moor, and secondly Othello’s wife being the senators daughter and higher class. These are obviously very important characteristics of Othello introduced early in the play because it shows how far Othello had to come to surpass his race in order to gain respect not only from his people but the noble class. Because Rymer considers Othello a fable in needs to have morals that are taught throughout. I thought his three examples were a little racial. The first dealt with a warning to high class woman that without parent consent they will end up with a black moor. The third example I do agree with though and that is for a man to figure things out ‘mathematically’ before they become jealous and ruin themselves. Desdemona for example clearly feel in love with Othello because of his stories of fighting in the war and this love should in my opinion have been enough for Othello to question if she would truly betray him. Rymer in this critic deals a lot with the unnatural aspects of Othello that only occur because of Shakespeare’s uniqueness such as having Othello be a lieutenant general instead of just a regular moor and also marrying a high class woman instead of a poor woman. Then the second part is very improbable because Othello does not even show his qualities of a general because he sends Iago to kill Cassio and he takes the job of killing Desdemona because she is weak and can not hurt him. But the character that is truly different then anything else is Iago, Shakespeare does this very well in my opinion because Othello is based on the most creative Shakespearean character I have read this year, his complexity and intelligence is brilliant. Iago’s plotting occurs soon after the marriage of...