In William Shakespeare's Othello, illusion too often disguises reality. The themes of the play are riddled with illusions, for example, love and relationships, peoples personalities, schemes, friendship, and happiness. All these aspects of the play are full of illusion, perhaps having only one "real" part to it, and that is the character of Emilia.
Love and relationships are the greatest illusion in Othello. The greatest of these being the relationship between Othello and Desdemona. Throughout the entire play, Othello is declaring "I love the gentle Desdemona," but it seems this love is nothing but an illusion to hide the reality of their situation. After always declaring his love for Desdemona, Othello's tune abruptly changes, when he begins to hate her, and even plots to kill her. Othello states, "I will chop her into messes." It almost starts to seem as if Othello and Desdemona's "love" is based purely on lust, as even when Othello hates Desdemona he still finds himself attracted to her. His jealousy is sexual jealousy, not because he thinks Desdemona has fallen out of love with him. Desdemona however lover the Moor to the end, even blaming herself for her own death, rather than letting Othello be blamed. In this way her death was in vain, because all through the play she fights to keep a love alive that was nothing but an illusion. Iago and Emilia's relationship however is more "real" than that of Othello and Desdemona. They have not love, but only lust, however they do not pretend, or try to create an illusion that there is anything there that isn't. Emilia and Iago are constantly fighting, and it is very clear to the audience how they feel about each other. With Othello and Desdemona however it is not so straight forward. Othello creates for Desdemona an illusionary state of comfort. Desdemona is forced to live with the illusion that Othello still loves her. Not so with Emilia and Iago. Emilia is very well aware that Iago does not...