Free Custom «Deception in “Othello”» Essay Paper

In the play “Othello” by Shakespeare, the concept of deception by friends comes out clearly. The main villain of the piece in “Othello” is Iago, who manipulates all the characters of the play including his wife, Emilia, getting them all caught up in an intricate meshwork of lies. It is unfortunate that the lies of one man should end up in so many deaths. The play shows how devastating an untruthful friend could be. In my own life, I have come across untruthful friends who almost ruined it. Luckily, my own experience did not end in any deaths, but the play “Othello” gives a succinct account of how destructive such friends can be.

In my experience, I had a close friend with whom I had grown up and spent most of my childhood. His name was Charles. We grew ever so close, but I realized that he was a very jealous individual. In our childhood, his jealousy did not present any serious challenge. However, as we grew up, I happened to fall in love with a remarkably beautiful woman. I noticed a hint of jealousy in his actions but ignored it, hoping that things would resolve themselves.

 

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A few years down the line, the situation has not changed. I noticed little cues in his behavior that told of his brazen show of jealousy. Still, I decided to ignore this, and I still entrusted him with intimate information about the relationship with my girlfriend. Little did I knew that he would use this information against me.

I had the female workmate with whom I was close. We, however, did not have an affair. Out of the blue, my girlfriend started accusing me of being unfaithful, but she did not reveal the source of her information. She insisted that she knew from one of my workmates that I was having an affair with another workmate. I was perplexed and decided to investigate who might have given her such malicious information.

My investigations yielded no answers, but as days went by, I became more and more convinced that it might only be Charles, because he was privy to most information about my life. Eventually, I managed to convince my girlfriend to reveal the identity of the source of her information. Unsurprisingly, it was Charles. What is more, he even tried to ‘offer comfort’ to my girlfriend by being an alternative.

I confronted him, and he owned up. Luckily for me, we came to terms and became even better friends after the experience. In “Othello”, however, Iago stretches the limits of deception, pulling the strings behind every misdeed that takes place in the play. Unfortunately, he does not seem able to be stopped by anything. He even kills his own wife when she tries to get in his way. The entire tragedy happens because everyone seems to trust Iago so much, but he throws all their trust to the dogs.

The concept of deception has an ingrained thematic significance in “Othello”. It is this deception that brings out such themes as the importance of honor in military life and in private life. It shows how shameful and costly dishonor and dishonesty can get. Moreover, the concept enables the reader to craft out the character traits in each of the characters.

The concept was as important in Shakespearean times as it is today. Back then, people highly regarded honor and despised people who were deceptive. People who lived in Shakespearean times understood well how costly deception and dishonesty could be. Today, this concept holds a lot of significance for me as an individual having experienced it first-hand. The dishonesty of a friend brought my relationship to the brink of destruction, but I luckily resolved the matter before it went out of hand.