Gears of War (not the game)

"Iago, as Harold Goddard finely remarked, is always at war; he is a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality.......In Iago, what was the religion of war, when he worshiped Othello as its god, has now become the game of war, to be played everywhere except upon the battlefield."
--Harold Bloom

At the beginning of the play, we are bombarded with images and metaphors of war. Write about the various ways this warlike atomsphere occurs so early in the play and shapes the tone of the play and its characters.



Iago is immediately introduced to the reader and begins his rant on how he is not the one that Othello picked to be a lieutenant, his second in command. From this moment, we see an almost continuous stream of references to war. These allusions set the circumstances for the entire play. Though it starts in Venice, the play moves on to Cyprus, which was, and still is, a battleground. First we hear about the actual war, and then we witness the private war that Iago wages on everyone around him. The plot of the story revolves around the military men in charge of fighting a war, including their private lives. War is used so heavily in the beginning of the play because the play is a war, albeit a war of emotions and words.