Othello: #7

            The play ends with a bloodbath of murders. However, before he kills himself, the only thing that Othello is concerned with is how he will be remembered. He pleads with Lodovico to describe him as he actually is, neither better nor worse. Othello believes that he loved “not wisely, but too well” (V. ii. 404) and he is “one not easily jealous” (V. ii. 405). The audience may or may not agree with Othello’s characterization of himself and it is now time for the reader to form their own opinion of Othello. Did he die a noble and honorable leader of Venice, or an evil murderer who was a threat to the state? Othello recounts time where he was both enemy and defender of the state. He compares himself to a “base Judean” who threw away a pearl worth more than all of his tribe (V. ii. 407–08). The race card is played a couple times throughout the play, but most of the characters do not see Othello’s race as an issue. Othello then reports a time where he killed an enemy Turk to defend Venice (V. ii. 414-17). Othello casts himself as both an insider and an outsider, but it is up to the audience to decide how Othello’s death will be remembered.