Free Will In Shakespeare's Othello

The fate of Othello is typical of a Shakespearian play. Shakespeare often builds up his main characters, by calling them ‘valiant' and ‘noble' and relating all his great military achievements in the case of Othello, and then by dragging them off their elated positions by soiling them with such petty emotions as hate or jealousy. ‘Othello' itself is a play of strong opposites. Anger and love and the constant imagery of heaven and hell, Othello being the ‘devil' and Desdemona the ‘angel'.

One of the key factors, which no doubt contributes to Othello's downfall, is how Venetian society viewed him. ‘Moor' is the constant nickname that haunts him wherever he goes. Even though the people who say this might not be trying to be intentionally racist,
This is manifested by the amount of times Othello is referred to as a ‘devil'. This also begins to introduce the imagery of heaven and hell that becomes apparent in ‘Othello', which even Othello seems to enforce when he damns himself ‘beneath all depth in hell' and the way in which when talking of himself he always refers to hell and when talking of Desdemona, of heaven. On the other hand, Desdemona is seen as ‘heavenly' and an ‘angel'. Even now the devil is still perceived as being black, and people use the colour as an insult. This view of a race would naturally evoke prejudice that would hinder a black man in a white man's world, which would cause problems for him if a taboo such as interracial marriage were committed and might even, as Brabantio suggested, throw Othello ‘to prison, till fit
His artful manipulation of people makes him look like a stage manager, effortlessly controlling his victims. He gives many motives for his actions, he says that he hates Othello because he has apparently ‘'twixt my sheets…done my office' and therefore says that ‘nothing can, nor shall content my soul, till I am even with him, wife for wife'. This hints to the audience that his motive is sexual jealousy. However this reason is not very convincing, as he then acknowledges that he ‘know not if't be true'. This makes the audience doubt that this is the true reason of wanting to ‘enmesh ‘em all'. The other popular reason he gives is that he is angry by the promotion of Cassio to lieutenant instead of him, despite him believing that he is ‘worth no worse a place'. The other option is that he is envious of the ‘daily beauty' of Cassio and Othello's lives. But again this does not seem to quite fit. The final option is that he is simply malignant and enjoys creating chaos and exploiting people's virtues, which he sees as foolish weaknesses. He revels in describing his actions to the audience and to Roderigo, as if boasting about how evil he is. It is in fact possible that he is simply frustrated about how he feels he is suffering because of Othello doing his ‘office' and Cassio being promoted ahead of him and that he is simply doing all this to try and make them suffer as much as he