Two opposing views of the hero and villain have dominated criticism of 

Othello this century. One school

of thought suggests that Othello is a noble hero who is brought down by a devil, whose actions cannot
be explained satisfactorily. Some who subscribe to this reading cast Othello as a credulous fool who is
out of his depth among the sophisticated Venetians. Opponents of this view play down Iago’s cunning,
describing the villain as a worldly realist who locates and exploits his general’s weak spot; in this reading
it is possible to view Othello as flawed and self-regarding, rather than inherently noble.

In 1904 A. C. Bradley presented an overwhelmingly positive analysis of Othello, whom he saw as

blameless. For Bradley, Othello was ‘the most romantic figure among Shakespeare’s heroes … [he] does
not belong to our world’. Bradley’s Othello is a man of mystery, exoticism and intense feeling, trustful,
open, passionate but self-controlled, ‘so noble … [he] inspires a passion of mingled love and pity’ which
none of Shakespeare’s other heroes is able to inspire. Bradley also commented on Othello’s poetic
qualities and argued that the newness of his marriage makes his jealousy credible. Iago’s methods are
also considered to be plausible in this critic’s reading of the play. Bradley believed that Othello never
falls completely and suggested that at the end of the play we feel ‘admiration and love’ for the hero,
because we exult in the power of ‘love and man’s inconquerable mind’. Many other commentators have
concurred with Bradley’s suggestion that love is the central idea in Othello and confirmed Othello as one
of the greatest lovers in literature; in a number of these readings critics have been also been alarmed by
the Moor’s total erotic commitment.

Two very influential critics rejected Bradley’s analysis of the hero. In these readings Othello emerges as a
weak and inadequate figure. T. S. Eliot (‘Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca’, 1927) accused Othello
of self-dramatisation. Focusing on his last speech he says the Moor is guilty of trying to cheer himself
up as he attempts to evade reality; for Eliot this speech is a ‘terrible exposure of human weakness’. F.
R. Leavis (‘Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero’,1952) also rejected Bradley’s reading of Othello’s
character. He argued that the tragic protagonist was responsible for his own downfall: Iago’s role is
‘subordinate and merely ancillary’. Leavis claims that Othello has a propensity to jealousy and
possesses a weak character, which is sorely tested by marriage; ‘the stuff of which he is made begins at
once to deteriorate and show itself unfit’. Othello’s love is dismissed; it is ‘composed very largely of
ignorance of self as well as ignorance of her [Desdemona]’. Othello emerges as ferociously stupid in
Leavis’s reading. So far as Iago is concerned, Leavis feels that he displays ‘a not uncommon kind of
grudging malice’ and has enough of a grievance to explain his motivation. The Bradley–Leavis debate has
continued, with commentators exploring Othello’s flaws and nobility and arguing about whether Iago is
motiveless evil personified or simply a sour subordinate with petty but adequate motives for
revenge. Some critics question whether Iago understands his own motivations. Since the 1950s there
have been a number of suggestions that Iago is driven by latent homosexuality. Hazlitt’s view of the
villain has been extended so that Iago is now considered an example of the typical stage Machiavel who
‘personifies rationality, self-interest, hypocrisy, cunning, expediency and efficient “policie”’, he is an
‘amoral artist’ who seeks to fashion a world in his own image (Leah Scragg, ‘Iago – vice or
devil?’ Shakespeare Survey 21, 1968).

Desdemona has received a good deal of critical attention during this century. Some commentators
suggest she is a goddess and a saint, others see her as a representative of goodness and purity, whose
self-control and innocence are praiseworthy. Many critics have commented on her commitment to love
and loving. A different view of Desdemona and what she represents has emerged in recent
years; feminist and new historicist critics have examined her character in relation to the society she
moves in and its value systems. Marilyn French (Shakespeare’s Division of Experience, Abacus, 1982)
explores the masculine and misogynistic value system at work in Othello. In spite of her masculine
assertiveness in choosing her own husband, French suggests Desdemona ‘accepts her culture’s dictum
that she must be obedient to males’ and is ‘self-denying in the extreme’ when she dies. French also
comments on the feminine values that she feels Othello, Emilia, Cassio and Roderigo subscribe to, which
are destroyed by Iago, whose ‘ordinary wisdom of the male world’ comes to dominate. Lisa Jardine (Still
Harping on Daughters, 1983) suggests that the stage world of Jacobean drama is wholly masculine and
argues that there is only a male viewpoint on offer. Jardine asserts the view that Desdemona proves to
be ‘too-knowing, too-independent’, that ‘The shadow of sexual frailty hovers over’ her throughout the
play. Because of her waywardness she is punished by patriarchy, which gives women licence to scold but
then revokes that licence; ultimately, Jardine suggests Desdemona is a patient Griselda, ‘glorious in her
resignation in the face of husbandly chastisement’, she shows ‘exemplary passivity in adversity’ and
becomes a stereotype of female passivity.

In Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama (1987) Ania Loomba extends these discussions of gender and
politics to include race. For her, this play is about the very complex relationship between a black man, a
white woman and the state. Like the critics mentioned above Loomba focuses on the structures of
oppression in Renaissance texts and explores the radical instability and contradictions they throw up.
For Loomba, women and blacks exist as ‘the other’ in this play. Loomba argues that Othello has a split
consciousness and is ‘a near schizophrenic hero’; his final speech ‘graphically portrays the split – he
becomes simultaneously the Christian and the Infidel, the Venetian and the Turk, the keeper of the
state and its opponent’. She also argues that ‘Othello’s colour and gender make him occupy
contradictory positions in relation to power’. Othello is an honorary white at the beginning of the play
but becomes a ‘total outsider’, marginalised from society and its ideology by his relationship with
Desdemona, which ruptures his ‘precarious entry into the white world’ and ‘catalyses the contradictions
in Othello’s self-conception’. Loomba suggests that Desdemona ‘passes from being his ally who would
guarantee his white status to becoming his sexual and racial “other”’ when her husband sees her as
an adulteress. Essentially, for this critic, the central conflict in Othello is ‘between the racism of a white
patriarchy and the threat posed to it by both a black man and a white woman’. Class and gender
relations are invaded by race. Finally, Loomba insists that Othello ‘should not be read as a patriarchal,
authoritative and racist spectacle, nor as a show of female or black superiority’; instead the play should
be used to ‘examine and dismantle the racism and sexism’ of hegemonic ideologies.

Several twentieth-century critics have been preoccupied by the Christianity of Othello the character
and Othello the play. Many have noted the Christian signification of certain speeches (e.g. V.2.33 and
V.2.24). Othello has been compared to Job, Judas and Adam; Desdemona with Christ and Iago with
Satan. Some critics suggest that Othello is damned when he commits suicide because he has sinned
against God’s law. Othello is also accused of other soul destroying sins; murder, despair and entering
into a compact with the devil (Iago). Other critics suggest that Othello simply affirms a morality that is
consistent with Christianity; it presents a positive view of love and faith, shows us that vengeance is
wicked, pride dangerous and frowns on the malice and destructiveness of jealousy and malice.

Finally, there has been a number of close analyses of the language of Othello; three much-admired texts
which are worth looking at in full are G. Wilson-Knight’s, ‘The Othello Music’ (1930) from The Wheel of
Fire (Knight also looks at the morality of the hero), William Empson’s ‘Honest in Othello’ (from The
Structure of Complex Words, Chatto & Windus, 1951), in which the author argues that there are a
number of ways of interpreting the use of this very perplexing word, and R. B. Heilman’s Magic in the
Web (1956), a very thorough exploration of the language of Othello.