Key Events

• Iago's Plot

  While Othello and Desdemona retire to bed, Cassio is put in charge of the watch. Iago then puts his plan into action.
• Iago's trick

  • While Othello and Desdemona retire to bed, Cassio is put in charge of the watch.
  • Iago then tricks Cassio into drinking to the point of drunkenness and Roderigo provokes him according to plan, immediately confirming Iago’s slanderous prediction of Cassio’s uncontrolled behaviour to the governor, Montano.
• Cassio's disgrace

  • Cassio strikes Roderigo and wounds Montano, who has intervened to stop the fight.
  • Othello is roused from bed and to anger.
  • He dismisses Cassio from his service after hearing Iago’s cunning account of the incident.
• Advice

  • Cassio appeals for advice from Iago, regarding the loss of his reputation and denouncing the demon drink.
  • The latter plays the good friend and tells him to use Desdemona to try to get his place back since the ‘General’s wife’ is now ‘the General’.
• Desdemona

  • Iago’s description of Desdemona is low and coarse, contrasting with the flattering and courteous comments that Cassio makes about her.
  • Iago has set up revellers to trap Cassio into having to be sociable and to toast to the health of ‘black Othello’ or prove himself ill-mannered.
• Iago

  • Thus Iago uses virtues as well as faults against their owners to unmake what has been made: the lieutenancy, the marital union, and the respect of Cypriots for Venetians.
• Iago's Plot 2

  Iago manages the action, entrances and exits, and timing of this scene in a masterly fashion, and comes out of it well himself.
• Drunkenness

  • In Iago’s view, real men can hold their drink, and be the life and soul of the party, as he can.
  • Drunkenness was seen as a state akin to bestiality, since it involves loss of clear vision and reason, and is an ‘enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains’.
• Iago's cunning

  • Iago manages the action, entrances and exits, and timing of this scene in a masterly fashion, and comes out of it well himself: he diminishes people’s reputations, both in their eyes and in the view of others, and raises himself in everyone’s esteem.
• Sex

  • Whenever Iago can get in a reference to sex, he does so, as in the ‘bride and groom / Divesting them for bed’, and his speech equates love with ‘opposition bloody’ and the battle imagery of ‘swords’, ‘tilting’, ‘odds’ and ‘action’.
• Speech

  • Speech and the disadvantages of those who cannot speak (Cassio and Montano), are made clear in this scene.
  • Double-talking Iago can speak in a way that both condemns Cassio and yet appears to be pleading on his behalf, as a loyal friend would.
• Wrath

  • It is of crucial significance that Othello says, ‘My blood begins my safer guides to rule, / And passion, having my best judgement collied, / Always to lead the way’.
  • This is tantamount to having fallen: letting passion overrule the safer guide of judgement, as in Adam’s original sin.
  • To reinforce a recurring image, ‘collied’ means ‘blackened’.
  • Othello never recovers from his giving way to the deadly sin of wrath at this moment.