In Shakespeare's play Othello, the main character Othello is typically victimized and portrayed as a mere scapegoat for the evil Iago's devious plans. However, Othello is not entirely free of responsibility for his wife's death. Othello, the tragic hero, is as responsible as Iago for Desdemona's premeditated murder due to his internal defects. Specifically, flaws such as his vivid imagination and excessive idealization are brought to the surface by Iago, which consequently allows Iago to easily manipulate Othello. Othello, a tragic hero full of hidden flaws, tries to appear as a man of logic alone. and courage, and not subject to human emotions. His show begins with his narration at Brabantio's house. As Othello reveals to the Duke of Venice: His father loved me, he often invited me, He still questioned me about the story of my life From year to year, the battles, the sieges, the fortunes That I have gone through... In which I spoke of the most possibilities disastrous, Of moving accidents caused by floods and fields, of very thin scratches in the imminent and deadly breach, of taken by the insolent enemy and sold into slavery, of my redemption from there... And of the cannibals who eat each other, of the anthropophagous and of men whose heads grow below their shoulders. (I.iii.127-144)Othello states that Brabantio was interested in stories of Othello's courageous adventures and the hardships he had overcome. To satisfy Brabantio's desire to hear such stories, Othello recounts his adventures on land and sea, his near-death experiences, being taken and enslaved, and then his emancipation. As Othello continues, he also talks about cannibals and men with severe deformities, such that their heads grew below their shoulders rather... center of the card... due to his excessive idealization, wishing to remain hidden. Unfortunately, Iago discovers these flaws and since the flaws are unique to Othello, Iago is able to manipulate Othello more easily than anyone else. Works Cited Bent, Geoffrey. “Three Green-Eyed Monsters: Acting as Applied Criticism in Shakespeare's Othello” The Antioch Review 56.3 (1998): 358-73.Jstor.org. Network. May 3. 2014..Kirschbaum, Leone. "The modern Othello." ELH 11.4 (1944): 283-96. Jstor.org. Network. 3 May 2014. .Rogers, Stefano. "Othello: comedy in reverse." Shakespeare Quarterly 24.2 (1973): 210-20. Jstor.org. Network. May 3. 2014. .Shakespeare, William and Edward Pechter. Othello: authoritative text, sources and contexts, criticism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Print.