We also watch with dismay as the other characters become confused and paralysed by the multiple lies ‘honest’ Iago tells them, while we know the true situation. It’s uncomfortable for the audience as it puts them in the position of being conspirators in Iago’s manipulation. We, the audience, know what Iago is doing but Othello does not, so it heightens the dramatic irony that’s at work in the play. It’s ironic, because it’s made under false pretenses. In Othello, the line, ‘beware the green-eyed monster’ is very important in the text. One of the most common colour matchings is red and anger. We may call a coward yellow, and the USA military awards injured servicemen the Purple Heart, in recognition of their courage, purple being associated with courage. If we are down we may talk about feeling blue – and countless songs use that idea, including titles like ‘It’s been a blue day,’ ‘I’ve got the blues,’ ‘Rhapsody in blue,’ and so on. We are more likely to say ‘I’m green with envy,’ than simply, ‘I’m envious.’ And if we say, ‘I’m green,’ everyone understands.Ĭoupling other colours with emotions is still very much with us too. These days we still refer to emotions in terms of colour.
He adds the caution ‘beware’ to make it even more threatening.Īnd so, although the idea of jealousy being green was an everyday matter for audiences, Shakespeare has, as usual, taken some ordinary thing and turned it into the immortal idiomatic, highly visual, phrase – ‘green-eyed monster.’ Portia refers directly to ‘green-eyed jealousy’ and then, in the later play Othello, Shakespeare turns it into an even more visual idea, making it a monster, suggesting that it is powerful and dangerous. Green was matched with envy and jealousy. In Renaissance England most emotions were matched with colours. Shakespeare had previously used the idea in The Merchant of Venicewhere Portia refers to “green-eyed jealousy” (Act 3, Scene 2). It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Iago plants the seeds of jealousy in Othello’s mind by saying: “O beware, my lord, of jealousy In Act 3, Scene 3 of the play Iago tries to manipulate Othello by suggesting that his wife, Desdemona, is having an affair.
Shakespeare most famously used the term ‘green-eyed monster’ in Othello. Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order.
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