TRAGEDY

"Othello" is a tragedy, but, unlike many of Shakespeare's plays, nobody dies until the last act. That fact makes it difficult to know the classification of the play until it's over. There are, however, scenes in the play that allow us to foreshadow that death was in the near future. Iago's character, in general, has evil thoughts and makes people do and believe things that they would never ordinarily do/believe otherwise. He plants the seed in Othello's mind that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio, which leads people to believe that Othello might kill one of them or both. He also leads Roderigo to believe that Cassio is really the only thing standing in the way of his relationship with Desdemona, which may make some think that he will kill Cassio. In both cases, Cassio is dead, but, in the end, Cassio is really the only one who prevails. I'm glad that Cassio didn't die, because he didn't do anything wrong. I think that Iago needs to be tortured until no end.