Iago does define the play, he is the central character (according to some readings). And I would argue he is a nihilist. And by the end, I think after killing Desdemona Othello becomes a nihilist of some sort too. The problem with the play is that the ending is unsettling, it not actually ending happily, and instead drifts into a dark depressive emptiness, rather than a kathartic ending. I think in his end years Shakespeare was striving to create that sort of ending, and gets probably closest in Lear, with Cordelia's death, and the gloomy ending on Edgar, who, as the audience knew, was going to follow sooner or later.


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