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Othello, a la Shmoop. Let me paint you a picture. Othello was a
Moorish general in the Venetian army.
He secretly married Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio.
This angered Roderigo, who was rich and in love with Desdemona.
Roderigo wasn't the only dude who was mad at Othello. I, Iago, had a beef with the general,
too.
See, he promoted Cassio the bookworm over me, even though I'd been in battles before
and Cassio never had.
Given our mutual hatred of Othello, I convinced Roderigo that we should work together to ruin
Othello's life.
Caught up now? Good. On with the show. Othello's new father-in-law, Brabantio, accused
Othello of using witchcraft to seduce Desdemona into marriage.
The general countered that he hadn't used witchcraft...
...he'd just told Desdemona sad stories of his life pre-Venice and those had caused her
to fall in love with him.
Sure you did, Othello. Sure you did. The other Venetian senators bought what Othello
was selling, and so Othello and I and pretty much every other character in this play went
to Cyprus to defend the island against an impending Turkish attack.
When we got there, however, we learned that the Turkish fleet had sunk in a storm. There
was much rejoicing. I put Operation Destroy My Commanding Officer
into effect immediately. Of course my plan was needlessly complicated, because this is
Shakespeare.
First, I got Cassio drunk. Then, Roderigo and Cassio got in a fight.
Then, Othello stripped Cassio of his new rank.
Then, in order to convince Othello that Desdemona and Cassio were having an affair, I convinced
Cassio to convince Desdemona to talk to her husband on Cassio's behalf.
Complicated isn't the right word for what happened next. Byzantine! There you go. My
plot got byzantine.
All you really need to know is… a cleverly-placed handkerchief and my careful manipulation of
Othello led him to believe that his wife was cheating on him with Cassio. Othello determined
to kill Desdemona, and he asked me to kill Cassio.
My partner-in-crime Roderigo started whining that I wasn't doing enough to help him win
Desdemona, so I talked him into going to kill Cassio in my place. Roderigo attacked just
as Cassio was leaving his girlfriend's house.
There was fighting, blades flashed, blood spilled, yada yada yada.
Roderigo ended up dead by my hand, and the blame for the attempted *** of Cassio landed
squarely on Cassio's girlfriend, Bianca.
In the meantime, Othello killed his wife by smothering her with a pillow. Desdemona's
attendant, Emilia, who also happened to be my wife, called for help.
So, there was the general, trying to explain his motive for the ***, and of course he
went and mentioned the handkerchief.
This is where my wife got involved. See, she knew I'd had the handkerchief, although she
didn't know why, and she put one plus one together and came up with conspiracy for ***.
I killed her, not that it did me any good. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.
Then Othello stabbed me.
Then… realizing that Desdemona had been innocent of cheating on him, Othello killed
himself. Now, here I am, waiting to receive some kind
of punishment. Othello may be dead, but it looks like I'm never going to get that promotion.