Othello Act 1 Analysis & Summary
The action of the first scene heightens the audience’s anticipation of Othello’s first appearance.
We learn Iago’s name in the second line of the play and Roderigo’s soon afterward, but Othello is
not once mentioned by his name. Rather, he is ambiguously referred to as “he” and “him.” He is also
called “the Moor”, “the thick-lips”, and “a Barbary horse”, all names signifying that he is dark-
skinned.
Iago plays on the senator’s fears, making him imagine a barbarous and threatening Moor, or
native of Africa, whose bestial sexual appetite has turned him into a thief and a rapist. Knowing
nothing of Othello, one would expect that the audience, too, would be seduced by Iago’s portrait of
the general, but several factors keep us from believing him. First, Roderigo is clearly a pathetic and
jealous character. He adores Desdemona, but she has married Othello and seems unaware of
Roderigo’s existence. Roderigo doesn’t even have the ability to woo Desdemona on his own: he has
already appealed to Brabantio for Desdemona’s hand, and when that fails, he turns to Iago for help.
Rich and inexperienced, Roderigo naïvely gives his money to Iago in exchange for vague but
unfulfilled promises of amorous success.
The fact that Iago immediately paints himself as the villain also prepares us to be sympathetic to
Othello. Iago explains to Roderigo that he has no respect for Othello beyond what he has to show to
further his own revenge: “I follow him to serve my turn upon him”. Iago explicitly delights in his
villainy, always tipping the audience off about his plotting. In these first two scenes, Iago tells
Roderigo to shout beneath Brabantio’s window and predicts exactly what will happen when they do
so. Once Brabantio has been roused, Iago also tells Roderigo where he can meet Othello. Because of
the dramatic irony Iago establishes, the audience is forced into a position of feeling intimately
connected with Iago’s villainy.
In many ways, Iago is the driving force behind the plot, a playwright of sorts whose machinations
inspire the action of the play. His self-conscious falseness is highly theatrical, calculated to shock the
audience. Iago is a classic two-faced villain, a type of character known in Shakespeare’s time as a
“Machiavel”—a villain who, adhering all too literally to the teachings of the political philosopher
Machiavelli, lets nothing stand in his way in his quest for power. He is also reminiscent of the stock
character of Vice from medieval morality plays, who also announces to the audience his diabolical
schemes.
After having been prepared for a passionate and possibly violent figure in Othello, the quiet calm
of Othello’s character—his dismissal of Roderigo’s alleged insult and his skillful avoidance of
conflict—is surprising. In fact, far from presenting Othello as a savage barbarian, Shakespeare
implicitly compares him to Christ. The moment when Brabantio and his men arrive with swords and
torches, tipped off to Othello’s whereabouts by Othello’s disloyal friend, vividly echoes John 18:1–
11. In that Gospel, Christ and his followers are met by officers carrying swords and torches. The
officers were informed of Christ’s whereabouts by Judas, who pretends to side with Christ in the
ensuing confrontation. When Othello averts the violence that seems imminent with a single
sentence, “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust ’em”, he echoes Christ’s command to
Peter, “Put up thy sword into the sheath” (John 18:11). However, whereas Christ’s calm restraint is
due to his resigned acceptance of his fate, Othello’s is due to his sense of his own authority.
Brabantio twice accuses Othello of using magic to seduce his daughter, and he repeats the same
charge a third time in front of the duke in Act I, scene iii. Even though Shakespeare’s audience would
have considered elopement with a nobleman’s daughter to be a serious, possibly imprisonable
The action of the first scene heightens the audience’s anticipation of Othello’s first appearance.
We learn Iago’s name in the second line of the play and Roderigo’s soon afterward, but Othello is
not once mentioned by his name. Rather, he is ambiguously referred to as “he” and “him.” He is also
called “the Moor”, “the thick-lips”, and “a Barbary horse”, all names signifying that he is dark-
skinned.
Iago plays on the senator’s fears, making him imagine a barbarous and threatening Moor, or
native of Africa, whose bestial sexual appetite has turned him into a thief and a rapist. Knowing
nothing of Othello, one would expect that the audience, too, would be seduced by Iago’s portrait of
the general, but several factors keep us from believing him. First, Roderigo is clearly a pathetic and
jealous character. He adores Desdemona, but she has married Othello and seems unaware of
Roderigo’s existence. Roderigo doesn’t even have the ability to woo Desdemona on his own: he has
already appealed to Brabantio for Desdemona’s hand, and when that fails, he turns to Iago for help.
Rich and inexperienced, Roderigo naïvely gives his money to Iago in exchange for vague but
unfulfilled promises of amorous success.
The fact that Iago immediately paints himself as the villain also prepares us to be sympathetic to
Othello. Iago explains to Roderigo that he has no respect for Othello beyond what he has to show to
further his own revenge: “I follow him to serve my turn upon him”. Iago explicitly delights in his
villainy, always tipping the audience off about his plotting. In these first two scenes, Iago tells
Roderigo to shout beneath Brabantio’s window and predicts exactly what will happen when they do
so. Once Brabantio has been roused, Iago also tells Roderigo where he can meet Othello. Because of
the dramatic irony Iago establishes, the audience is forced into a position of feeling intimately
connected with Iago’s villainy.
In many ways, Iago is the driving force behind the plot, a playwright of sorts whose machinations
inspire the action of the play. His self-conscious falseness is highly theatrical, calculated to shock the
audience. Iago is a classic two-faced villain, a type of character known in Shakespeare’s time as a
“Machiavel”—a villain who, adhering all too literally to the teachings of the political philosopher
Machiavelli, lets nothing stand in his way in his quest for power. He is also reminiscent of the stock
character of Vice from medieval morality plays, who also announces to the audience his diabolical
schemes.
After having been prepared for a passionate and possibly violent figure in Othello, the quiet calm
of Othello’s character—his dismissal of Roderigo’s alleged insult and his skillful avoidance of
conflict—is surprising. In fact, far from presenting Othello as a savage barbarian, Shakespeare
implicitly compares him to Christ. The moment when Brabantio and his men arrive with swords and
torches, tipped off to Othello’s whereabouts by Othello’s disloyal friend, vividly echoes John 18:1–
11. In that Gospel, Christ and his followers are met by officers carrying swords and torches. The
officers were informed of Christ’s whereabouts by Judas, who pretends to side with Christ in the
ensuing confrontation. When Othello averts the violence that seems imminent with a single
sentence, “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust ’em”, he echoes Christ’s command to
Peter, “Put up thy sword into the sheath” (John 18:11). However, whereas Christ’s calm restraint is
due to his resigned acceptance of his fate, Othello’s is due to his sense of his own authority.
Brabantio twice accuses Othello of using magic to seduce his daughter, and he repeats the same
charge a third time in front of the duke in Act I, scene iii. Even though Shakespeare’s audience would
have considered elopement with a nobleman’s daughter to be a serious, possibly imprisonable
