The animal imagery in Othello also serves to set the tone for the play. Professor Steve Snyder of Grandview University elaborates: “As a result of this hierarchy, creatures and things on a higher level were believed to possess more authority over lower ones.” Therefore, by depicting Othello using animal attributes, Iago describes Othello as subjugated, beneath him, and less than human, just as much of European society did towards people of African descent. It often served those at the “top” of the chain more than those at the “bottom”. The purpose of the Great Chain was to give all things a place and purpose in the universe according to God’s will. For example, kings were considered a higher level of human than peasants a lion was seen as a superior animal to an oyster. Every class has its own subdivisions, except the first because of the inability to compare God with God. The Great Chain of Being was a hierarchical class system that graded everything according to its level of divinity versus lowliness, starting with God at the top, then heavenly beings (angels), humans, animals, plants, and finally inanimate elements (rock, gold, etc.). Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies!” (1.3.331-332) His attitude towards animals as lower life forms is somewhat typical of Elizabethans, who ascribed to the Great Chain of Being concept. Iago also shows the audience how cruel he is by disregarding animal life: “Come, be a man. As future interactions with his wife prove, he thinks love is a lie people use for their own benefit or delusion, and considers all women to be unfaithful, two-faced witches. This expresses Iago’s disdain for love and women. Iago laughs at him and says: “Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.” (1.3.310-311) In other words, if he were to kill himself over a woman’s love, he would be no more a man but an ape. He says he will now drown himself because he is distraught. After Othello and Desdemona have received Brabantio’s reluctant blessing, Rodrigo, who wanted to marry Desdemona, laments to Iago. His crude insinuations are met with horror, and Brabantio leaves to seek out his daughter.Īnimal references are also used to shape Iago’s character. You’ll have your nephews neigh to you.” (1.1.108-109) Both metaphors use animal terminology coupled with references to Othello’s Moorish decent (“black”, “Barbary”) to illustrate hostility towards Othello’s ethnicity and interracial marriage. He goes on to liken Othello to a horse: “…you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse. Iago calls to him: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe.” (1.1.85-86) He is referring to Othello and Desdemona. He uses animal imagery to dehumanize Othello and shame Brabantio into action.
In the very first act of Othello, villain Iago seeks to stir up conflict for Othello and Desdemona by reporting their elopement to her father Brabantio in the middle of the night. In Shakespeare’s Othello, animal imagery is used by many characters to illustrate the darker parts of humankind. While we may try to mask or stifle the baser instincts of our hearts, we inevitably err and display the shortcomings of human nature.
So often we can see the kinship we share with the creatures of the world around us: an athlete as agile as a cheetah, a grandmother as wise as an owl, a child as curious as a monkey, a murderer as treacherous as a snake.