Jealousy

The Theme in the Work

Jealousy enters the play as a project before it becomes a feeling. In Act II, Scene 1, Iago says in a soliloquy that, if all else fails, he wants at least to throw the Moor into a jealousy that will cost him his judgment, and the same act shows Othello fearing his own happiness before there is any cause.

In Act III, Scene 3, Iago gives jealousy a name, a green-eyed monster, and Othello answers that he wants to see before he doubts and that, when he doubts, he wants proof. About 170 lines later he drops the speech and demands ocular proof, which Iago fabricates with a dream and a handkerchief. In Act III, Scene 4, Emilia tells Desdemona that jealous souls need no cause: jealousy comes from jealousy, a monster that begets itself.

In Act IV, Scene 1, jealousy already interprets on its own: Othello falls into a fit, then eavesdrops on Cassio's laughter about Bianca and takes it as a confession about Desdemona, and finally strikes her in front of Lodovico. In Act V, Scene 2, he kills her, and when he at last sees himself he asks to be spoken of as one not easily jealous who, once deceived, went too far.

Jealousy also appears on a smaller scale, in other characters, and this helps show how it works. In Act III, Scene 4, Bianca receives from Cassio the embroidered handkerchief to copy, concludes on her own that it is a token from another woman, and accuses him of having a new lover, though he has said nothing of the kind; in Act IV, Scene 1, she throws the handkerchief back in anger. Iago himself calls Othello's jealousy "unlettered," a jealousy that misreads Cassio's laughter and gestures badly, and the conversation about Bianca that he stages exists only so that the general will make that wrong reading. In Act III, Scene 3, after Iago leaves, Othello's first question is why he married, and later in the same scene he says that, before he knew, he slept, ate, and was free and happy, and that he would rather be wronged than know a little. Jealousy, then, is less the discovery of a fact than the loss of a peace of mind he had without proof of anything.

The play's jealousy is the effect of an assembly: Iago plans it in Act II, Scene 1, names it in Act III, Scene 3, and finds it ready in Act IV, Scene 1. The play itself warns, through Emilia, that jealousy needs no cause, and what Othello calls proof is already jealousy at work.

Where It Appears

• Act II, Scene 1: In a soliloquy, Iago plans to incriminate Cassio in Othello's eyes for supposed closeness to Desdemona, fed by an unconfirmed suspicion that Othello himself slept with Emilia.
• Act III, Scene 3: Iago calls jealousy a green-eyed monster, and Othello answers that he wants to see before he doubts and, later, demands ocular proof.
• Act III, Scene 4: Othello demands Desdemona's handkerchief, repeats the same word three times, and cuts off her every attempt to speak of Cassio.
• Act IV, Scene 1: Hidden, Othello hears Cassio laugh as he speaks of Bianca, takes the laughter for a confession about Desdemona, and strikes her in front of Lodovico.
• Act V, Scene 2: Othello accuses Desdemona of having given the handkerchief to Cassio and smothers her; in the end, he asks to be spoken of as he is, with nothing softened and no malice.

Passages

Iago gives jealousy the image that the whole play repeats:

In the play-within-the-scene, Othello narrates the meaning before it happens:

At the end, Othello asks for an unretouched portrait: