Shakespeare immediately lays the audience down in this doped circumstance by way of a crude introduction midway through Iago and Roderigo’s discourse. This slightly unconventional first taste gives the impression that the situation is already very fluid. Moreover, the confession of Iago that he follows Othello but to “serve his turn upon him” glints of the subterfuge that is yet to come.
When Othello, through the tasteless devices of Iago, is asked to give account of his marriage again a deceitful betrayal is implicated. He has married Desdemona without the blessing of her father who had previously welcomed him into his home. Since Othello knew that such a blessing was unattainable for any black man this is an act more forgivable than Desdemona’s deceiving her own father. Indeed, the audience is compelled to give this happening weight by Brabantio’s “She has deceived her father, and may thee”. This line is the first where Desdemona’s honesty is truly challenged a theme introduced early in the play but one that will grow later as the play expands.
The striking thing about the deception in “Othello” is the extent to which it takes place in the mind of the deceived. In that the conviction truly is what is required, any evidence that is to come later is simply to excuse actions that might be taken as a result of this dogma. This idea stems from the first act when Desdemona’s father is convinced by Iago that his daughter has “deceived” him partly by Iago’s presentation of the situation. But there is more to the trickery than a twisting of the situation, the choreographer always draws on the insecurities of the victim. In the first instance Iago was using the racism of Desdemona’s father, later he was to use Othello’s lack of faith and Roderigo’s naivety to his own ends. The problem is, in part, a self delusion which is perpetuated by the catalyst of evil that Iago is only too happy to provide.
It is the ease with which Iago knowingly deludes his peers that makes him so despicable in the eyes of the audience. In III iii, for example, he provides little evidence for his outrageous claims that Desdemona is being unfaithful. Yet it is not only those things of which Iago has spoken that Othello mentions after their conversation.
“Haply, for I am black,
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chambers have, or for I am declined in the vale of years”
Having mentioned none of these, having focused solely on the possibility of Desdemona’s disloyalty, it is obvious that these fears must always have been inside Othello. Othello goes on to call this unhappy circumstance (in his mind at least) “destiny unshunnable” again suggesting that such fears were already in his thoughts. All it took for Othello to think them vindicated was the suggestion by another. For all Othello’s talk of optical proof, his funk and absent faith were directing his actions as soon as the words left Iago.
Indeed, the contrast between Othello’s “I will deny thee nothing” at the beginning of the scene and his “Why did I marry?” are testament to this. Further, to Othello, Desdemona’s words are far less than proof of the more rational truth than Iago’s are of unfounded falsities. This is particularly true with regard to the handkerchief when Othello feels he has received proof that Desdemona has betrayed his love his conviction is so strong that, for him, confronting her is not necessary. So it happens that the tragic hero is a syncope because Iago manipulates the fears and hopes and dreams and loves that Othello has for himself and Desdemona as he did first with her father.
It can be seen also with Roderigo, whose want and ambition are exploited to line Iago’s pocket. Roderigo who, after intrusting vast sums to Iago for the purposes of wooing Desdemona, received not the slightest acknowledgement from her. Roderigo the fool. He was however, flawed in a way not dissimilar to Othello. He was as malleable in the hands of Iago to virtually the same extent, a soft word from Iago and the illusion once again had life. Yet again, Iago takes on an infallible nature in the eyes of the beholder arguably because he speaks of things that Roderigo is looking for justification to believe.
The most terrible outcome of this deception is realised in the last scene, when Othello is driven to kill his wife. Perhaps this is a lesson to the audience as to the power of our perception of the actualities rather than the situation as it truly is. Whatever the case this idea was hinted at in the first scene. Desdemona’s father was unaware of her marriage and denied that she could possibly love Othello with out the aid of potions. This happening, reflected on after seeing the whole play, does tend to suggest that he simply did not wish to see her love. And the “deception” that he warns of was truly only Desdemona allowing him the luxury of his dreams for her as long as she could. The difference between her and Iago being only that hers was a lie of love and Iago’s of hate.
“Othello” is indeed a play whose main theme of deception is obvious from the outset. However, the development of the play to its final and bloody end helps the audience to more fully understand the depth and complexity of this idea. What initially looked like an independent woman marrying for love in defiance of her father remained thus but took on other dimensions too. Once the audience can reflect with full knowledge of the rest of the play it is seen that the confusion that Iago offers first Roderigo and Desdemona’s father is not a burden given entirely by him. Rather some of it is inherently part of the hopes, dreams, fears, wants and faiths of those he deceives. This idea is eventually brought to a head by Shakespeare’s heartbreaking unavailing of truth to those souls that were so unknowingly lost.