Othello

After reading these last acts of Othello, I feel the same frustration I usually feel after watching or reading some kind of tragedy. In every instance of tragic love, it seems like the characters are reduced to animalistic creatures with no control over their actions. Shakespeare hints at this in Act 5, Scene 2, when Desdemona tells Othello,

"And yet I fear you; for you're fatal then
When your eyes roll so..."

Later, before Othello MURDERS her, she again brings up his crazed look:

"Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame."

Shakespeare then seems to indicate that each person has an inner rage, usually release only by the jealousies of love. While this animalistic rage isn't necessarily commendable, he seems to indicate that it is common to all humans, and a natural reaction for Othello. But really-killing his wife? The image of a powerful war hero 'smothering' the frail, delicate woman that Desdemona is supposed to be seems like a horror movie, not a love story gone wrong. I think there's more at work in Othello's mind than the typical jealousies of love..perhaps Shakespeare questioned Othello's strength of sanity throughout the story. In either case, I think Iago represents here the nagging fear that grows in a person's mind until it drives a person mad (literally, in Othello's case) or to action.