Lust, as one of the seven deadly sins, is quite apparent both in the dialogue and plot of Othello. Lustful actions and speech combined with the envy created by Iago’s deceptions are the main elements at work that all the main characters are at least somewhat implicated in. As the manipulator of sin, the “puppeteer” Iago gauges and exploits the lustfulness of other characters, most notably Desdemona. In terms of the time period in which Shakespeare wrote this play, Desdemona is a rather forthright woman and is not meek about expressing her desires. She pursued her love interest, Othello, and was remarkably forward in dealing with her father, thus she can be seen as a woman who is not afraid to make her demands known. Iago capitalizes off of this trait and makes her willingness to express her desires similar to her forwardness in pursuing her supposed love interest, Cassio. Iago realizes that Othello must have some awareness of his wife’s forwardness and shamelessly expresses to the audience in one of the important quotes from “Othello” by Shakespeare, “as little a web as this” (II.i.169) referring to the fact that there is holding of hands between Desdemona and Cassio. The fact that he points out to the audience that he able to using something “little” to create such havoc is important because it shows his perceptions to the way other characters will react and also demonstrates that lust and envy working together can produce disastrous results, even from minor events.

Through his various modes of manipulation, Iago tries to make others, aside from simply Othello, aware that Desdemona is a lustful creature. In order to keep the steady income from Roderigo, he assures his patron that eventually Desdemona will stop loving Othello since “blood is made dull with the act of the sport” (II.ii.222). In essence, he is reassuring Roderigo that Desdemona is so lustful that eventually she will tire of Othello and look for another sexual partner to satisfy her insatiable needs. Iago revels in his own manipulation of the lust and other seven deadly sins of the characters and it is easy to imagine that he states with glee, “This is the fruits of whoring” (V.i.118) as the dead bodies of his “victims” are carried away. The idea that he has planted a seed is a theme throughout the text and one realizes that the flower of this is Othello’s final act. Strangely, despite the revulsion one may feel for Iago, Othello’s envy has so overtaken him that the audience cannot help but marvel at the skill and ease with which Iago was able to convince him that his wife had been unfaithful. His envy and blind trust in Iago cause him to state, just before murdering his wife, “Strumpet, I come. / Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted. / They bed lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood be spotted” (V.i.35-37). Instead of the kind and loving words Othello so eloquently expressed during the first half of the play, these words are violent and the fact that he calls her a “strumpet” is clearly due to the influence of the puppeteer, Iago.

Although not readily visible in the play, sloth, as one of the seven deadly sins is also functioning. Many of the characters place an inordinate amount of trust in Iago and oddly, no one seems to doubt his motivations. It seems highly lazy and slothful that Othello puts blind faith in the words of Iago and does not investigate the circumstances of his wife’s perceived infidelity himself. At one point, Othello does request “ocular proof” of Desdemona’s affair with Cassio, but in return for this, Iago merely states that he saw Cassio wipe his beard with the handkerchief Othello gave her as a sign of devotion. This hardly seems like the visible proof necessary to implicate his wife in an affair and it is simply sloth that causes Othello to overlook the fact that there was a lack of proof. Again, it is clear that Iago was able to manipulate reality and show this proof only through his own words. In the topsy-turvy world that Iago has constructed for the reader through his tricky use of language and words in “Othello” it seems only natural to place trust in Iago, especially since he is able to stroke Othello’s ego enough to make his assertions of “ocular proof” acceptable. Iago has managed to so successfully manipulate Othello’s perceptions of reality, mostly through the use of language, that Othello is floundering with reality and can only cling to the false notions of reality that are constructed for him by Iago. It is absolute sloth that attributed to the tragic of the end of the play as the confusion and “alternate world” set up for Othello might have been remedied if only Othello had not been lazy about demanding proof. This certainly leads one to wonder about the extent to which Iago realized that Othello had a tendency towards slothful behavior as it seems he was able to rely on this weakness completely.

Iago possesses his own traits of both greed and gluttony, especially in terms of power. While most of his motivations remain masked, it is clear that he enjoys having control over the others character’s lives, if for no other reason than own amusement and selfish conceits about the extent in which he is so able to manipulate. He realizes that other characters are greedy, especially Roderigo, and in his attempt to satisfy Roderigo’s greed to have Desdemona all to himself, at the same time he is fulfilling his own greed by being paid for his deceitful services. Iago also realizes that other characters are gluttonous, especially Cassio and his lustful appetites for his prostitute. Iago realizes that many are aware of his relationship with a whore and he takes this perception one step further by encouraging him to drink and then lambasting him publicly for his gluttonous drinking habits. While the aforementioned seven deadly sins before greed and gluttony are more important to the play as a whole, they could not function so well without the full compliment of these last two since Iago is not just exploiting the capacity for other character’s sins, but is highlighting the fact that these perceived and real sins are indulged in to the point of gluttony are greedily practiced.

In his text, Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare thought it was necessary to include personifications of the seven deadly sins to taunt the sinning Doctor Faustus with. While some argue that this play was a morality play that was designed to both express moral concerns while critiquing the Church, it is nonetheless significant that Marlow chose to use these seven sins as functioning characters. The idea of evil and sin is never entirely separated from literature from this era and is especially present in other of Shakespeare’s works. One of the most clearly stated examples of a deadly sin occurs with the combination of race, greed, gluttony, and wrath in the case of “Othello” compared to “The Merchant of Venice“. Just as Shylock seems to embody some of the stereotypes placed upon him, so too does Othello. After he has committed the murder of his wife, he laments, saying “Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away/ Richer than all his tribe” (V.ii.356–357). One has to wonder if this quote means that Othello feels that he has succumbed to the stereotype of being a “Moor” and a savage since his normally haughty speech has been reduced to addressing himself to a “base Indian,” one who is unfit for the civilization he has now found himself cast out from. In many ways, it seems as though Shakespeare, by choosing such language for the character of Othello, is attempting to cause us to pity him. Although the reader already has some sympathy for him since he is obviously, throughout most of the play, marginalized because of his status as an outsider, this final act causes some conflicting feelings and makes us realize that perhaps what he did was in fact savage. Much as in The Merchant of Venice, we are being constantly reminded of Othello’s and Shylock’s status as “other” and by the end of each play, it seems this status has somehow been resolved. In the case of Othello, he has verified the stereotypes by committing a rash and brutal murder (even if Desmonda seems to forgive him and even though the audience understands he was the victim of deceit). The sins expressed by both characters are the direct result of each “outsider’s” reality being shifted thus leaving them open to errors in judgment and a greater propensity towards sinning because they are more open to suggestion and stereotypes.

In Macbeth, evil is always present and lurking. Just as Macbeth feels that sin is surrounding him and manipulating him (“Come, let me clutch thee / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. / Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” (2.1.35-40) So too does Hamlet feel the strain of sin. At one point he is paralleled with Othello after realizing the gravity of his crimes. Hamlet states, “O God, Horatio, what a wounded name / Things standing thus unknown shall I leave / behind me. / If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, / absent thee from felicity awhile, / and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain / to tell my story” (5.2.347-51). Much like Othello, Hamlet wishes to be remembered apart from sin and to have the truth revealed, thus also acting as a sort of morality play. In sum, the seven deadly sins were so vital in this literary period that even the plays that may not have been attempting to instruct readers were subtly expressing the dangers of sin.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Atheism in “Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe  •  Close Reading of a Passage in Othello by Shakespeare : Analysis of Race  •  Comparison of Hypocrisy Theme in Doctor Faustus and The Importance of Being Earnest  •  The Forbidden Quest for Knowledge in Doctor Faustus and Paradise Lost   •  The Power of Words in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Othello   •  Perceptions of Race in Othello by Shakespeare   •  Prejudice in Shakespeare’s Othello and The Merchant of Venice

Works Cited

Hunter, G. K. “Othello and Colour Prejudice.” Proceedings of the British Academy 53 (1967): 139-63.

Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet” The Unabridged William Shakespeare. New York: Running P, 1997. 971-1034.

Shakespeare, William. “Macbeth” The Unabridged William Shakespeare. New York: Running P, 1997. 1201-1256.

Shakespeare, William. “Othello.” The Unabridged William Shakespeare. New York: Running P, 1997. 1093-1133.

Shakespeare, William. “The Merchant of Venice.” The Unabridged William Shakespeare. New York: Running P, 220-249