As one of Shakespeare’s most cunning plays, Othello explores a Moor’s struggle against the manipulative devices and forces of nature set against him, internally and externally. However despite the motifs that the play relies heavily on such as racism and deception, the patriarchy of manhood and its struggle with the nobility of honor stands as the overriding major theme in the play and is thus explored and epitomized by Iago through his soliloquy by the inequity of the gender counterparts through the rigid duty of marriage, the search for the gratification of identity and how appearance is but a deceptive façade that conceals truth.
The rigid duty of marriage was not only a prevalent concern in Elizabethan society, but in Othello as well. Marriage relates directly to the concept of the patriarchal gratification of manhood and its struggle with the nobility of honor, thus serving as a catalyst for many of the circumstances in which this occurs. This can be seen in an excerpt in Act 2, Scene 1, “For that I do suspect the lusty Moor/ Hath leap’d into my seat; the thought whereof/Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw …show more content…
The metaphor of Othello “leaping” into Iago’s seat serves as testament for how Iago views his own matrimony; it is more of a title than a loving union. By his metaphorical use of the