Before he kills Desdemona, Othello first has to convince himself to go ahead with the murder. This, of course, is not an easy task, because Othello still loves Desdemona. To try and convince himself to go ahead with the murder, Othello reasons that if he doesn't kill Desdemona, then Desdemona will "betray more men," as Othello believes she has betrayed him. This weak justification then prompts him to repeat the phrase "put out the light."
The imperative form of this phrase indicates that Othello is trying to order himself to go through with the murder. The light he refers to symbolically represents Desdemona's life. This is ironic because light symbolizes goodness and purity, and we, the audience, know that Desdemona is indeed still good and pure. The second time that Othello refers to the light, he could be referring to the light in his own life. Desdemona has brought metaphorical...
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light to the darkness of Othello's life, and so to kill Desdemona will be to, metaphorically, extinguish the light in his own life.
Othello also says, before killing Desdemona, "When I have pluck'd the rose, / I cannot give it vital growth again." The rose here is another metaphor for Desdemona's life. It is a fitting metaphor because, like Desdemona, a rose is beautiful. The rose could also be a metaphor for the beauty in Othello's life. Othello realizes that once he "pluck(s)" the rose from its soil—or, in other words, once he kills Desdemona—he will not be able to bring her back to life again. Neither will he be able to resuscitate the beauty in his own life, that beauty of course being lost as soon as Desdemona is dead.
These two utterances from Othello indicate the pain and suffering that he thinks he is inflicting upon himself with the murder of Desdemona. This in turn suggests that Othello sees his killing of Desdemona, at least in part, as an act of martyrdom. He is here convincing himself that he is just as much a victim as Desdemona, and this seems to make the murder, to him, more palatable.