Iago A Character Study Essay Research Paper

Iago, A Character Study Essay, Research Paper

How Evil is Seen in Shakespeare s Othello

- A Character Study of Iago -

By Amber Santos

In Othello, one can see the battle between the deceitful forces of evil and the innocence of good mixing like watercolors that are too wet. The characters themselves can be viewed as a mix of both good and evil,* with the exception of two; Desdemona who is spotless and Iago, who has no good in him. They are our two extremes, and the walls between which the rest of the characters, all a mix of good and evil, will interact with one another.

What is Iago. “I am not what I am,” he says. Iago is fully aware of and confident in his ability to manipulate and improvise situations and people to his benefit, and does so frequently and cleverly. Iago is smart. He is an expert judge of people s characters and weaknesses, and uses this to his advantage. His ultimate motivation is this: defeat of good by the wrath of evil.

The first to fall victim to Iago’s manipulation is foolish Roderigo. Roderigo is in lust with Desdemona and would go to almost any length to have her reciprocate these feelings. Iago tells Roderigo that the only way to win Desdemona’s love is to take all of his land, sell it for cash, and follow Desdemona to Cyprus. “…put money in thy purse…” (1.3.382-423). We see that Iago can get a substantial profit from this in his soliloquy, which begins, “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse” (1.3.426). Roderigo eventually starts to question Iago’s honesty. When faced with an accusation, Iago simply offers that killing Cassio will aid his pursuit of Desdemona, and foolish Roderigo unquestioningly falls for it, shown by his reaction to the proposed murder, “I have no great devotion to the deed / And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons. Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword! He dies.” (5.1.9-11). If this were modern times, one might wonder if Shakespeare would have included an apathetic Oh, well! at the end of this phrase. Iago uses Roderigo as someone to do his “dirty” work, and Roderigo is naively unsuspecting. In this same scene, Iago convinces Roderigo to wake up Barbantio, Desdemona’s father, by screaming to him in the middle of the night from the street telling him about Othello and Desdemona’s elopement. After Roderigo tells Barbantio what happened to Desdemona, Iago (who is hiding in the shadows so that it appears that Roderigo is speaking) releases a tirade filled with slurs about Othello, referring to him as various animals and speaking in perverted sexual terms.

Act 1, Scene 1 also introduces us to the hostility of Iago against Othello. Iago has been appointed the position of servant to Othello instead of the more esteemed position of Lieutenant, which he coveted. A man called Cassio has been appointed this position, and Iago feels betrayed because he considers himself more qualified than Cassio, claiming he has no war experience, except from books. Iago is enraged and wants to destroy Cassio. He gets his chance in Act 2, Scene 3. After a war victory, there is partying, and Othello appoints the new Lieutenant Cassio to keep watch. Iago asks Cassio to have some wine, and although at first Cassio refuses Not tonight, good Iago. I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking. (2.3.34-35) he eventually is talked into having some. Cassio then gets into a drunken brawl because of something that another soldier named Montano had said, and ends up disgracing himself. When Montano asks Iago Is he often thus. (2.3.133), Iago lies and tells him that every night Cassio gets drunk before he goes to sleep. He then convinces Montano to inform Othello of Cassio s weakness for alcohol, hoping this would produce disapproval for Cassio from Othello. Iago pretends that he does not want to be the one to disgrace Cassio, and again gets someone to do his dirty work. As Iago secretly had hoped, Cassio is discharged of his duty as Lieutenant, and Iago is put into his position. This gives Iago the opportunity to more effectively interact with and manipulate Othello.

Iago desires to have Desdemona for his own, but to reach Desdemona directly is impossible for Iago because not only is she married, she is married to his superior. It is for this reason that Iago decides to exploit Othello. If Iago can turn Othello against his own wife, he may not win Desdemona, but will cause Othello to despise her. Iago uses the weaknesses that he sees in Othello, (jealousy, his devotion to accepting things as they seem, and his military instinct to make decisions quickly) to turn him against Desdemona. By implying that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair, he throws Othello into an irrational fit of jealously. Iago thinks, I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear (2.3.376). Indeed, his accusations are like poison, distorting Othello s rational thinking process gradually, eventually consuming him totally, and bringing him to murder Desdemona in jealousy.

One example of how he does this is when Iago asks Cassio about his sexual relationship with Bianca, a whore. Othello (who had actually passed out in a fit of madness, due to Iago s pestilence ) wakes up in a position to see, but not hear, their conversation, and assumes that it is a sexual relationship between Cassio and Desdemona that is being discussed (probably because he can see hand motions or gestures and can catch certain words that imply sexual activit