Essay on Othello by William Shakespeare

"Why Iago chose to destroy Othello and Desdemona even though he was jealous of Cassio..."



My grandpa, who was a gardener, told me once how to properly kill weeds. You must pull them by the roots or poison its nourishment in order for it not to grow back and kill your crop. I think Iago knew my grandpa. Iago must have followed that advice because my grandpa was such an expert at gardening. The only thing is, gardening was not where Iago used that advice.
Iago did hate Cassio for being the lieutenant instead of him, but Cassio was just the weed’s leaves. Iago wanted to destroy Othello because of his failure to see the achievements he has done that Cassio did not have. Iago expressed this hatred of Othello to Roderigo in Act I, Scene I, when they were planning to tell Barbantio of his daughter’s disappearance in the hands of Othello. He used Desdemona, the one that’s nourishing the roots, against Othello, the roots of all his hatred.
Iago did not intend to destroy Desdemona,in Act III, Scene III, Line 525, he even asked Othello to let her live when Othello told him he wanted to kill her. He tarnished Desdemona’s clean reputation to make Othello suspicious and mistrustful of her. He was pulling the roots while poisoning the soil because he knew that when both are gone, the leaves would wither and die leaving him to harvest the crop.
Iago knew that if he destroyed Othello, then he would have more of what he wanted. He did not view Cassio as a real threat because he had him dancing in the palm of his hand by the way that he was manipulating him to make Othello jealous. He did not intend to destroy Desdemona, Othello did that himself. Iago almost executed his plan if it weren’t for his wife, Emilia, who revealed his intentions of becoming rich and wanting to be the new leader in Othello’s place. The gardener was bitten by an ant and jerked his hand from the weed to kill it instead of fully pulling out all of its roots. My grandpa forgot to tell him that when you pull out weeds, you can pull out ants as well.