Editing Othello (section)

===Jealousy===
{{Quote box
 |quote     = "O beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on."
 |source    = Iago<ref>''Othello'' 3.3.167-169.</ref>
 |align     = left
 |width     = 20em
 |salign    = right
}}
The influential early twentieth-century Shakespeare critic [[A. C. Bradley]] defined Othello's tragic flaw as a sexual jealousy so intense that it "converts human nature into chaos, and liberates the beast in man ... the animal in man forcing itself into his consciousness in naked grossness, and he writhing before it but powerless to deny it entrance, grasping inarticulate images of pollution, and finding relief only in a bestial thirst for blood."<ref>Desmet, Christy "Character Criticism" in Wells, Stanley and Orlin, Lena Cowen "Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide", Oxford University Press, 2003, pp.351-372 at p.357, citing [[A. C. Bradley]]'s ''Shakespearean Tragedy''.</ref>

This jealousy is symbolized in the play through animal imagery. In the early acts of the play it is Iago who mentions ass, daws, flies, ram, jennet, guinea-hen, baboon, wild-cat, snipe, monkeys, monster and wolves. But from the third act onwards Othello catches this line of imagery from Iago as his irrational jealousy takes hold.{{sfn|Muir|1996|pp=21-22}} The same occurs with "diabolical" imagery (i.e. images of hell and devils) of which Iago uses 14 of his 16 diabolical images in the first two acts, yet Othello uses 25 of his 26 in the last three acts.{{sfn|Muir|1996|p=22}}

Not only Othello, but also Iago is consumed by jealousy: his is a kind of envy, which contemporary scholar [[Francis Bacon]] called "the vilest affection, and the most depraved; for which cause, it is the proper attribute of the Devil... As it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly,<!-- sic --> and in the dark; and to the prejudice of good things."{{sfn|Muir|1996|p=20}}

Sometimes critics have struggled to define the kind of jealousy Othello suffers, or to deny it as a motive (for example, those who claim that in Russia between 1945 and 1957 only one actor portrayed Othello as obsessed by jealousy). In fact jealousy is a wide-ranging emotion and encompasses the spectrum from lust to spiritual disillusionment within which Othello's obsession must fall. And he displays many accepted aspects of jealousy: an eagerness to snatch at proofs, indulging degrading images of the jealousy's object, snatching at ambiguities to ease the mind, dread of vulgar ridicule, and a spirit of vindictiveness.{{sfn|Muir|1996|p=23}}