Othello and Julius Caesar

I did my ISP on Othello and Julius Caesar; I compared both tragic stories because there were several similarities in the way Shakespeare made the characters.

The main 3 themes in both stories are Jealousy, trust, and betrayal.

The tragic downfall in both of these plays is caused by Cassius’ jealousy in Julius Caesar and Iago’s jealousy in the play, Othello. Their manipulative abilities dice them to kill the protagonists of the play. The catastrophic disaster in these dramas is caused by Cassius’ and Iago’s betrayal.

Iago starts looking for anything to blame on Othello because of his jealousy by making up stories about Cassio having an affair with Desdemona so when I compared them, I also noticed that similarly, Cassius is jealous of Caesar when he feels very threatened by Caesar’s power, and dislikes the fact that he is becoming godlike in the eyes of the Romans. Cassius’ jealousy mainly comes when Caesar gets the throne.

Both antagonists manipulate others and make them become the victims through gaining support from Brutus since he is the only one that can help him rise against Caesar. He chooses Brutus and decides to betray him and use him since Brutus is the one that is honorable and liked by the people of Rome.

Cassius is able to persuade Brutus for him to be able to gain support to assassinate Julius Caesar. Cassius uses Brutus’ respectable standing in the community to his advantage in order to further his own desire. Brutus trusts and believes Cassius, and continues his misjudgment when he is persuaded by Cassius that Caesar was going to be assassinated for the good of Rome. Correspondingly, Iago starts selfishly and sneakily asking Othello about his relationship with Desdemona to hint Othello that something is wrong.

He is also hungry for power. In his lines, Iago doesn’t actually tell Othello that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, but he subtly implies it with his statements. After hearing Iago say this, Othello vows revenge against the guiltless Cassio. Iago does this as a gesture of loyalty, resulting with his ambition of attaining the position of lieutenancy, crowned to him by Othello.

Trust and betrayal are two very powerful emotions that are easily abused. Being as smart as he is, Iago is quick to recognize the advantages of trust and uses it as a tool to forward his purposes. So basically he takes an advantage of how people trust him including Othello which makes him feel better about pursuing his goals. Iago has reached his goal by letting Othello trust him and believe him, and now he is suspicious about Desdemona’s fidelity, so he his doubting her love for her. Similarly, Brutus’ truly innocent way of thinking allows him to be persuaded by Cassius whom he trusts, to go against Caesar. Caesar’s assassination is done only because of Cassius’ betrayal. So if Brutus didn’t get stabbed by betrayal by Cassius, Caesar wouldn’t have got killed.

So basically Othello and Brutus were trustful, and thorough in their trust. They put entire confidence in the honesty of Iago and Cassius; they believed they were truly loyal and honest with the generals themselves. Yet, this confidence was misplaced which caused betrayal.

In conclusion Both Iago’s and Brutus’ positions in the community allow them to get persuaded because they are trustworthy. This is proven when Cassius convinces Brutus to join the conspiracy in order to help the Romans rid Rome of Caesar, and when Iago insinuates that Desdemona is betraying Othello with Cassio by cunningly questioning Othello about the relationship between Desdemona and Cassio. These acts lead to the dreadful death of all four characters. In Julius Caesar and Othello, all along the protagonists had been honest and innocent, yet they are caught in a “web” of shifting power, which leads to their unfortunate tragic downfall.