Like any other Shakespeare tragedy, `Othello' deals with serious themes, traditionally ones in which a character or characters meet disaster as a result either of personal failings or circumstances beyond their control. For the play to work successfully, these themes remain simplistic in the form of common issues that exist in the lives of the characters. The themes of love and trust are present but are manipulated by Iago to become implanted as jealousy and hatred in the tragic hero.

According to The New Lexicon Webster's Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the English Language, "jealousy is a state of fear, suspicion, revenge or envy caused by a real or imagined threat or challenge to one's possessive instincts. It may be provoked by rivalry, in sexual love, by competition or by desires for the qualities or possessions of another." In the midst of his subtle game to bring down Othello, he...