For the first time, the novel makes explicit the link between one person’s dishonesty and another person’s crumbling mental state. Kathy is lying, but Theo internalizes her deceit as his own insanity, questioning himself instead of forcing himself to believe that his beloved could hurt him. Also important: Shakespeare’s
Othello is a story about a jealous man named Othello who, prodded by a scheming underling, starts to suspect his (innocent) wife Desdemona of adultery.