"Othello subverts traditional theatrical symbolism. An audience contemporary with the author would have seen black skin as a sign of barbarism or Satanism. A white soldier would have been interpreted as a symbol of honesty. Iago in fact does his best to convince the other characters that Othello is a "barbarous horse" who covers Desdemona, or a "black goat", with horns, who mounts her as an animal; and that he himself is all too truthful. In Othello, however, the black character is "noble" and Christian; and the white soldier is a scheming liar.

Othello thus continually challenges the connection between a physical or signifying sign and what is signified by it. for example, Iago – whose task as bishop is to keep up a sign of loyalty to Othello – says, of his pretending to love the Moor: "Although I hate him as I hate the pains of hell,...