When looking back at one's life, it seems as though everyone always looks to the points in life where things went wrong, for example, cheating on a girlfriend, failing a test, getting in a huge fight with family. The same is the case for Othello when he looks back on his life right before he kills himself after he murders Desdemona. By examining the points in Othello's downfall before he commits suicide can really help an audience to get inside Othello's head and reveal the true nature of his character. To do a true character study on Othello, it is important to examine a scene from each part of the play and determine whether or not Othello influences his own actions or whether or not society transformed him into a monster. The examination will proceed in chronological order starting with an opening scene, moving to the dead middle of the action, and finally the scene where Desdemona is murdered. .
Othello starts the play on top of the world. He is the man that everyone wants to be: married to a beautiful woman, the head of the Venetian army, and has a decent status within the Venetian court. It is important to note, however, that Othello is one of the first characters in a major play to be of color. Even though Othello holds a great deal of success in his time in the military, with success come trials and tribulations. Literary scholars have decoded the real meaning behind the scene in the beginning of Othello in which Othello is accused of wooing Desdemona via witchcraft. It is said that the accusation of color may have come from Desdemona's father being racial towards Othello being African, so he covered up being racist by claiming Othello was an evil witch, " . . . To fall in love is what she fear'd to look on! It is a judgment maimed that will confess so could err against all the rules of nature," (Shakespeare 1.3.6). Even from the beginning of the play, Othello is combating difficulties from the rest of society.
