The characters of Othello are divided by one question, whom to trust, and the tragedy is that almost everyone trusts the one man who is lying and doubts the one woman who is true.
This guide covers every major character in the play, grouped by the circles they move in: the married couple, the villain and his wife, Cassio and Bianca, the people of Venice, and the minor characters. For the plot, themes, and famous lines, see our full guide to Othello.
At a Glance
Here are the main characters of Othello for quick reference.
The Married Couple
A husband and wife who marry for love, against every expectation of the world around them.
Othello
A Moor, a man of North African descent, who has become Venice’s most trusted general. When we first meet him, he is calm and dignified in the face of danger. Confronted by an armed mob, he stops a fight with a single line: “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.” Accused before the Senate of winning Desdemona by witchcraft, he claims to be a plain speaker, “Rude am I in my speech,” and then tells the story of their courtship so beautifully that the Duke concedes it would win his own daughter too. His account ends with the simplest explanation of love in the play: “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them.”
Othello’s strength is also his weakness. He is open, trusting, and used to certainty on the battlefield, and he cannot bear doubt. Iago knows it: “The Moor is of a free and open nature / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so.” Once Iago plants suspicion, Othello demands proof, accepts a handkerchief as evidence, and murders his wife. When he learns the truth, he asks to be remembered as “one that loved not wisely, but too well,” and kills himself beside her: “I kissed thee ere I killed thee.”
Desdemona
A Venetian senator’s daughter who marries Othello in secret, defying her father and the prejudices of her city. Far from the passive victim she is sometimes taken for, she speaks up for herself before the whole Senate. “I do perceive here a divided duty,” she tells her father: she owes him her life and education, but now she owes her first loyalty to her husband. She insists on going with Othello to war.
Her generosity helps destroy her. When Cassio loses his post, she promises to plead for him and keeps pleading, never suspecting how it looks to a husband whom Iago has poisoned with jealousy. As Othello turns cruel, she stays loyal and bewildered. Dying, she protects him even from blame. Asked who has done this, she answers, “Nobody. I myself. Farewell. / Commend me to my kind lord.”
The Villain and His Wife
The man who engineers the tragedy, and the woman who finally exposes him.
Iago
Othello’s ensign, a soldier passed over for promotion in favor of Cassio. He tells Roderigo in the first scene that his loyalty is a mask: he will never “wear my heart upon my sleeve / For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.” He offers several reasons for hating Othello, including the lost promotion and a rumor that Othello has slept with his wife, but none quite explains the scale of what he does. “I hate the Moor” is his plainest statement, and it may be the truest.
Iago’s genius is improvisation. He uses whatever comes to hand: Roderigo’s money, Cassio’s weakness for drink, Desdemona’s kindness, a dropped handkerchief. He never tells Othello a direct lie when a hint will do, and he warns him against the very jealousy he is creating: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster.” Throughout, everyone calls him “honest Iago.” When he is finally exposed, he refuses to explain himself. “Demand me nothing,” he says, and falls silent.
Emilia
Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s attendant, worldly and outspoken where Desdemona is idealistic. She finds Desdemona’s handkerchief and gives it to her husband to please him, not knowing what he will do with it. Later, preparing Desdemona for bed, she argues frankly that husbands are to blame when wives stray, and that women have the same feelings and appetites as men.
In the final scene, Emilia becomes the play’s conscience. Told that Desdemona was false, she answers Othello with fury: “O, the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!” When she realizes her husband is behind it all, she refuses to be silenced, saying it is proper to obey him, “but not now.” She reveals the truth about the handkerchief, and Iago kills her for it.
Cassio and Bianca
The man Iago frames, and the woman who loves him.
Cassio
Othello’s young lieutenant, a courteous Florentine with polished manners and a weak head for wine. Iago gets him drunk on the first night in Cyprus and provokes a brawl, and Othello strips him of his rank. Cassio is devastated: “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!”
On Iago’s advice, he asks Desdemona to plead for him, which gives Iago exactly the appearance he needs. Cassio is innocent of everything Othello believes, and he survives Iago’s attempt to have him killed. At the end, he is appointed to rule Cyprus in Othello’s place.
Bianca
A courtesan in Cyprus who loves Cassio. Cassio finds Desdemona’s handkerchief in his room, where Iago has planted it, and asks Bianca to copy its embroidery. When she throws it back at him in a jealous fit, Othello, watching from hiding, takes it as final proof.
The People of Venice
The city that relies on Othello, and the men who resent him.
Brabantio
Desdemona’s father, a senator who welcomed Othello into his house but cannot accept him as a son-in-law. Woken in the night by Iago and Roderigo shouting crude, racist insults about his daughter, he accuses Othello of using witchcraft to win her. When Desdemona chooses her husband, he disowns her with a warning that Iago will later turn into a weapon: “She has deceived her father, and may thee.” In the last scene, we learn that grief over the marriage has killed him.
Roderigo
A wealthy, foolish Venetian who wants Desdemona and pays Iago to help him win her. Iago tells him again and again to “Put money in thy purse,” and drains it for himself. Roderigo is used in every stage of the plot, from waking Brabantio to picking the fight that ruins Cassio. When he finally threatens to expose Iago, Iago sends him to ambush Cassio and then kills him to silence him.
The Duke of Venice
The ruler of Venice, who needs Othello to defend Cyprus against the Turks. He hears both sides fairly and accepts the marriage, telling Brabantio that his son-in-law “is far more fair than black,” a compliment that reveals the prejudice it tries to overcome.
Minor Characters
Smaller roles that frame the tragedy in Cyprus.
Lodovico and Gratiano
Two Venetian noblemen who arrive in Cyprus near the end. Lodovico, a kinsman of Desdemona’s family, brings orders recalling Othello to Venice and is shocked to see him strike his wife in public. Gratiano is Brabantio’s brother. Both witness the final scene, and Lodovico speaks the play’s closing lines.
Montano
The governor of Cyprus before Othello arrives. He is wounded trying to stop the drunken brawl Iago stages, which gives Othello the reason to dismiss Cassio.
A Closer Reading: Who Gets Called Honest
In Othello, the word “honest” clings to the one man who deserves it least, and the play’s tragedy follows from where the characters place their trust.
Everyone calls Iago honest: Othello, Cassio, even Desdemona. It is the reputation that makes his lies work. Othello says so himself: he cannot believe the man would hint at something unless it were true. Iago, for his part, understands exactly why. Othello, he says, “thinks men honest that but seem to be so.” The general who trusts appearances is surrounded by a man who is nothing but appearance.
Meanwhile, the characters who are truly honest are disbelieved or unheard. Desdemona tells the truth again and again, about Cassio, the handkerchief, and her love, and Othello calls her a liar. Cassio is innocent and loses his post. Brabantio’s warning, “She has deceived her father, and may thee,” is a half-truth, and it is the one Othello remembers. The play keeps showing that reputation and truth run in opposite directions.
Only at the end does honesty cost someone everything, and the someone is Emilia. She has obeyed her husband all her life, and she chooses the truth over him at the one moment it matters: it is proper to obey him, she says, “but not now.” She dies for it. The honest word in Othello is not the one people repeat about a man. It is the one a woman speaks when silence would be safer.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about the characters in Othello, answered briefly.
Why Does Iago Hate Othello?
He gives several reasons: Othello promoted Cassio instead of him, and he suspects, or claims to suspect, that Othello has slept with his wife. None of them seems enough to explain his cruelty. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously described Iago as searching for motives for an evil that has none, and many readers agree.
Was Desdemona Unfaithful?
No. Desdemona is faithful to Othello throughout the play. Every piece of “evidence” against her, including the handkerchief and Cassio’s overheard words, is arranged or twisted by Iago.
Why Is Othello Called “the Moor”?
“Moor” was a term Shakespeare’s audiences used for people from North Africa, and more loosely for people with dark skin. Othello is an outsider in Venice, and characters like Iago and Brabantio use racist language against him. How race shapes his tragedy is one of the most discussed questions in the play.
Who Dies in Othello?
Desdemona, killed by Othello; Emilia and Roderigo, killed by Iago; and Othello, who kills himself. Brabantio is reported to have died of grief. Iago survives, wounded, to be tortured and put to death, and Cassio survives to govern Cyprus.
Is Emilia a Good Character?
She is a mixed one. She takes the handkerchief and stays silent about it while Desdemona is accused, but in the end she tells the truth at the cost of her life. Many readers see her as the play’s most honest voice.
Related Reading
Three pages that take the characters of Othello further.