Othello is the Moorish general in Venetian service whom the play carries from the height of his fortune to ruin: married to Desdemona, daughter of Senator Brabantio, without her father's consent, he is convinced by Iago that his wife betrays him with Cassio, and ends up killing her.
In Act I, Scene 3, accused of witchcraft before the Senate, he defends himself by telling his own life: his arm in the service of war since the age of seven, the captivity, the sale as a slave, the ransom, and how Desdemona fell in love listening to these stories. He sums up the courtship thus: she loved him for the dangers he had passed, and he loved her for the pity she felt. The Duke sends him to Cyprus against the Turks, and Othello leaves his wife in the escort of the "honest" Iago.
In Cyprus, in Act III, Scene 3, he tells Iago that he wants "To see before doubting", but, later in the same scene, he demands ocular proof. He accepts a dream told by Iago and the handkerchief as proofs, swears vengeance and names Iago lieutenant. In Act IV he strikes Desdemona in front of Lodovico, and in Act V he smothers her.
When the truth appears, he asks those present: "Speak of me as I am." He says they will speak of a man who "loved not wisely but too well", "little prone to jealousy", and he kills himself.