What Caused Othello's Downfall?

What Caused Othello's Downfall?

1. his downfall is due to his own harmartia

   • blind love
     • Ultimately, Othello is a man who loves excessively but 'loves not wisely'. Throughout the play Othello constantly confesses his love to Desdemona and also is overly assertive in saying that there is nothing he wouldn't do for her. 'Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee! And when I love thee not, chaos is come again.'. This fundamentally gives foreshadowing as chaos does eventually come again into Othello's life. At the end of the play, Othello ends up murdering Desdemona, and once he learns the truth he says 'I kissed thee ere U killed thee [...] Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.'. Even at his tragic end he proves that he did really love Desdemona, even in death. This can be seen as a way to justify his actions and may even come across as him saying he had no control over his actions, but due to his harmartia he owns all responsibility.
   • jealousy
     • At the beginning of the play Othello showed little to no signs of jealous, he had a vast amount of self control, however, throughout the play this self control is slowly chipped away by Iago who is planting thoughts of jealousy in Othello. It can also be said that others start to notice Othello's jealous loss of self control, for example after he snaps at Desdemona, Emilia says 'Is not this man jealous?'. Othello believes only what he can see or what is told to him by his trusted ensign - Iago. This therefore makes it even easier for Iago to poison Othello's mind. Othello is ultimately the kind of person to judge by the facts that Iago tells him about his wife's infidelity.
     • 'I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove; and on the proof, there is no more but this - away at once with love or jealousy'. This is ironic as Othello later finds out that it is not easy to make this choice between love and jealousy.
   • trusting others too easily
     • One of othello's major harmartias is being too easily trusting in others and also trusting in the wrong people. He has a terrible time in trying to choose whether to believe in Iago or his own wife. Also due to his military background he ends up struggling to trust anyone who doesn't have a military background because he knows 'little of this great world'. In the end, he trusts in Iago, it is the only thing that he is certain of - Iago's friendship. However, this ends up being a bad decision later as he eventually finds out that everything that he thought was truthful was just a bundle of lies created by Iago.

2. it was not a consequence of his own actions, but due to the circumstances out of his control

3. Othello's downfall is a consequence of the actions of those around him

4. his downfall is due to the deception of Iago