Was Othello foolish in the play Othello?

Answer 1

Yes, Othello was foolish in the play. He had believed the lies that Iago told him that Cassio was sleeping with his wife Desdemona. And the fact that Desdemona had been wrongfully unfaithful to him. These incidents were not true led him to believe that it is all real. So definitely Othello was mistakenly foolish indeed. He had found out that Desdemona was innocent but a little bit too late when Othello ultimately committed suicide out of horrifying guilt.

From another point of view it is a bit harsh to call Othello foolish. He is subjected to a sophisticated campaign of manipulation by Iago, who is a master at it. Very few people would have been able to resist Iago, mostly because he always appeared to resist saying that Desdemona and Cassio were having an affair, which made his suggestion that they were the more plausible.

Othello, the play starts with the possibility of a war against the 'Ottomites,' which rhymes with sodomites. But anyway, Othello is supposedly a successful army leader, and the play sets out to show how and why he is successful as a man of war. He lives in a violent universe, and his solutions are violent. The war is transported to the war of the sexes, as there is a lot of talk about the relations between men and woman, in regard to love and marriage.