Wednesday, October 6th Task

Is Iago justified in reporting Desdemona's marriage to Othello to her father? Consider his motives, Brabantio's response and the cultural assumptions about race in the play. Write a paragraph response, clearly identifying your thesis in the topic sentence.

Iago is justified in telling Brabantio about Othello and Desdemona's marriage, as he had a right to know about his only daughters recent marriage. However, it is Iago's motives that causes his actions to become selfish and unjustified. Iago's intentions for telling Brabantio were not out of kindness, they were out of his desire to get rid of Othello. Brabantio's angry response would be typical of a person in the time period in which Othello was written, where the cultural assumption is that Moors are a lesser person than white people. All of these factors would lead to Othello being hated by his father-in-law and would achieve Iago's hopes of being promoted. Iago is therefore not justified in telling Brabantio about Desdemona and Othello's marriage because not only were his intentions sinister, he was also aware of how Brabantio would respond to the news of a Moor stealing his daughter away from him.