What happens in Othello

On a dark street in Venice, a soldier named Iago wakes a senator with the news that his daughter has run off. Iago is furious. Othello, a Black general in Venice’s service, has just promoted a younger man, Cassio, over him, and Iago means to make him pay. So he tells Brabantio that his daughter Desdemona has secretly married Othello, dressing the news in the crudest terms he can find. Brabantio drags Othello before the Duke and accuses him of witchcraft. Othello answers calmly: he won Desdemona by telling her the story of his life, and she loves him. Desdemona confirms it, choosing her husband over her father. The Duke sides with Othello and sends him to defend Cyprus against a Turkish fleet.

A storm scatters the Turks before any battle, and Othello and Desdemona reunite on Cyprus in joy. Iago watches them and begins to build his trap. He gets Cassio drunk and goads him into a brawl that costs Cassio his rank. Then, posing as a friend, he advises Cassio to ask Desdemona to plead his case with Othello. It is a perfect snare. Cassio’s visits to Desdemona, and her warm efforts on his behalf, will become Iago’s evidence of an affair.

Iago begins to poison Othello with hints, half-finished sentences, and meaningful silences. He warns him against jealousy in a way designed to plant it. He suggests Desdemona deceived her own father, so why not her husband. He echoes Othello’s own words back at him and lets a pause do the rest. Othello, who trusts Iago completely and calls him honest, starts to crack. He demands proof he can see with his own eyes. Iago supplies it. A handkerchief Othello gave Desdemona, the first gift of their courtship, gets dropped and picked up by Iago’s wife Emilia, who hands it to her husband without knowing his plan. It ends up in Cassio’s lodging and then with a courtesan named Bianca. Iago stages a conversation in which Cassio laughs about Bianca while Othello, hidden nearby, believes he is hearing Cassio boast about Desdemona.

By now Othello is past reason. He strikes Desdemona in front of a visitor from Venice. He interrogates her, calls her a whore, and refuses to hear her denials. Iago, meanwhile, has more to clean up. He sends Roderigo, a foolish suitor he has been bleeding for money, to ambush Cassio in the street. The plan misfires: Cassio is only wounded, so Iago stabs him from behind and then kills Roderigo to keep him quiet, blaming the attack on Bianca.

Earlier that evening Desdemona, frightened without knowing why, sang an old willow song about a woman betrayed and talked quietly with Emilia about whether any wife would ever wrong her husband. Then Othello comes to her bedchamber while she sleeps. She wakes and pleads her innocence, but he smothers her, certain of her guilt and calling it justice rather than murder. Emilia arrives moments later, finds her mistress dying, and raises the house. When the truth of the handkerchief comes out, Emilia understands everything and names her own husband as the architect of it all. Iago stabs her for speaking and runs, but he is caught. Othello, seeing at last what he has done, wounds Iago, then turns the blade on himself and dies beside Desdemona. Iago is led away to be tortured, refusing to explain a word. Cassio is left in command of Cyprus, and the Venetian officers are left to carry the report of a man who loved, as he says, not wisely but too well.