Iago: "Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated."
Act 4, Scene i, 188-192
The characters of this story are all motivated by different means. Iago sets up everyone else's motivations though with his motive to get back at Othello for supposedly sleeping with his wife and to get back at Cassio for receiving position as lieutenant. With this in motion, Iago's plot concocts the other character's motives.
- Roderigo is motivated by Iago's promise. Roderigo pays Iago and in return, Iago promises that he will separate Desdemona and Othello, so that Roderigo may end up with Desdemona, his former lover.
- Othello is motivated by jealousy and the rumors which he believes to be true concerning Desdemona. Upon hearing that Desdemona cheated on him from Iago, Othello wants Desdemona out of his life. Othello wants to kill Cassio too for he mocked Desdemona (or so Othello thinks) for how Desdemona was deeply in love with him. Iago sneakily led Othello to believe that all of these situations about Desdemona were true, when they were in fact not. The above quote shows that Othello was motivated to then kill Desdemona because of her unfaithfulness to him. Othello basically wants to kill everyone at this point..
So the main motivations are driven by none other than jealousy. Jealousy makes people do unreasonable things is what the theme of this story should be. It causes Othello, who was once madly in love with Desdemona, to beat his wife and want her dead. It causes Roderigo to go out of his way to basically pay for love. And of course, jealousy causes Iago to ruin pretty much all of the character's lives. Jealousy is indeed a destructive force.
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