Othello, The Moor Of Venice By William Shakespeare

“Othello, the Moor of Venice,” is a play written by William Shakespeare sometime during the beginning of the 1600s. Typical of plays at the time, it was written in a dramatic style and tells the tragic story of Othello, a general in the Venetian army, and his marriage to Desdemona, the daughter of a politician in Venice. Influenced by the jealous Iago, a man who has multiple ulterior motives throughout the play, Othello becomes transfixed on the idea that his wife is having an affair with his recently chosen second in command, Cassio. In order to convince Othello of his wife’s deceitfulness, Iago tricks his own wife Emilia into stealing Desdemona’s handkerchief, hides it in Cassio’s room, and finally convinces Othello into murdering his wife.
The enraged jealousy, in which the play revolves around, has come to be known as the Othello Syndrome. This disorder is inspired by the exaggerated feats that the characters in the play go through by being influenced by jealousy. Characterized as “a rare delusional disorder with high-risk implications,” that includes “delusional, pathological, morbid, or erotic jealousy,” Othello Syndrome is a mental illness that can be seen even in today’s modern world (Miller 2010). By analyzing today’s medical definition of the disease, character examinations, and the motives behind Othello’s actions, it can be concluded that the epic play “Othello, the Moor of Venice” and its characters have reasonable basis to create the inspiration for a common mental
For some, it is an emotion that turns into an obsession that eventually possesses their entire mind, sometimes to the point of unreasonableness, irrationality, and unusual behavior and “has consisted of an ‘eternal triangle’ constructed from the classical trio- the husband, the wife, and the ‘other man’ (Todd 367).” Othello Syndrome, also known as morbid jealousy, is the fixation with “a partner’s sexual unfaithfulness based on unfounded evidence,” to the point where the sufferer will “interpret conclusive evidence of infidelity from irrelevant occurrences, refuse to change their beliefs even in the face of conflicting information, and tend to accuse the partner of infidelity (Kingham 207).” “It is a psychiatric condition in which the degree of jealousy and/or belief in infidelity of one’s spouse reaches delusional intensity (Cipriani, 468).” Those who are suffering with Othello syndrome are conflicted with an array of symptoms that include misconceptions, obsessions, and overvalued ideas; textual evidence from the play provides an outline for these indicators. Interestingly enough, “delusions of infidelity affect both sexes, but the incidence is appreciably higher and infinitely more dangerous in male subjects (Todd 367).”For example, Othello, upon being instigated by Iago, has delusions that Desdemona is in fact, having an affair with Cassio. He begins to see things that are not really