It is very easy to blame Iago for all that occurs throughout the play. He clearly is the reason for all of the tragedies at the end of the play. Iago is the the villain in the play but he shouldn’t be the only person blamed. Othello, Cassio and other characters should be guilty for the tragedies as well.
Iago sets everyone up in the play and makes them think that he is helping each of them while he is really tricking them into what he wants them to do. He does this all because he wants a higher ranking job. Othello is a very jealous person and is sensitive when it comes to Desdemona that Iago is able to trick him into thinking that she is cheating on him with Cassio. Iago takes advantage of Cassio’s youth and gets him drunk which winds up with him getting fired from his job. Iago then encourages Cassio to request to get his job back from Desdemona. He convinces Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are very close making him jealous. He gets help from his wife Emilia who finds Desdemona’s handkerchief and gives it to him. Iago takes the handkerchief and puts it in Cassio’s room to prove to Othello that Desdemona was there. Othello puts way too much trust in Iago and believes everything he is telling him. Othello becomes very angry and wants to kill Cassio. Rodrigo also in love with Desdemona finds out that Cassio loves her too. Iago uses this to convince Rodrigo to kill Cassio and both of them ultimately are killed. Othello then tells Desdemona that Cassio is dead and wants her to admit to cheating with him but she denies it all. Othello’s jealousy and trust in Iago is too strong and he doesn’t believe her and kills her before Emilia realizes and tells Othello what Iago has done. Iago in the end is jailed and refuses to give his reas...
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...eason. She doesn’t know what he wants with it but steals it for him anyways. She helps Iago set up Cassio for sleeping with Desdemona and uses the handkerchief to convince Othello that its true. Emilia helped Iago without asking or even suspecting anything and should be blamed for some of what happened.
Iago is the clear villain in the story and can easily be blamed for the tragic events. He is helped by people’s jealousy of others and their trust in him. He takes advantage of these things and uses them against them. He is responsible for what happened but shouldn’t be the only person blamed. Othello, Rodrigo, and Emilia are characters that should also receive some blame. Othello’s jealousy leads him to kill his wife. Rodrigo’s jealously leads to him killing Cassio and Emilia’s unawareness leads to Iago convincing Othello that Desdemona is in fact cheating on him.
In Shakespeare's play Othello, Iago Is shown to be the villain. With the cunning use of his brilliance and manipulation, he is able to orchestrate an entire plot to take his revenge on Othello the center of all his ill tempered aggression. By lying to characters like Roderigo and many others, including his wife, in order to
When Othello asks Iago for proof of Desdemona’s deceit, Iago describes scenes and events in which Othello has a reason to be jealous. In Act III, Scene I Iago is describing to Othello, Desdemona and Cassio’s imagined relationship, “It is impossible you should see this/ were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, as salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross as ignorance made drunk.” These images planted themselves inside Othello’s mind and haunted him until he did something about it. These images led to Othello believing Desdemona really did love Cassio.
While Castiglione would put Iago at fault for his misogynistic words and actions, Vives would say that Brabantio is the one to blame for his lack of control over his daughter Desdemona, and Whately would argue that Othello could have avoided this whole ordeal through forgiveness. While these different writers have good arguments for their side, Vives has the strongest argument. The tragedy carried out in Othello would have never occurred if Brabantio played his role as a father and stopped Desdemona from doing whatever she wanted. Iago knows that Desdemona was not cheating on Othello, and Iago is to be blamed for the whole tragedy due to his lack of care for the wellbeing of other people. Iago shows a little of his lack of care for women when he quotes, “You are pictures out of doors, bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens, saints in your injuries, devils being offended, players in your housewifery, and husbands in your beds” (2.1.111-14).
Iago elaborates a master plan to get Cassio position as a lieutenant. Iago get Cassio drunk so he could fight Roderigo. Othello then discharge Cassio from the lieutenant position when he says, How must poor Cassio have felt? To lose all he had worked for, working up his reputation that any half-hearted human can tell he earned and deserved. Iago know that Othello who ask him about the deed because of he fame of being a honest man. Iago tell Othello about the deed winning his trust that is when Iago starts to crab Othello by his weak point his Love for Desdemona.
Iago wanted Othello’s position and used others to shame Othello and gain stature. Iago dressed himself up a trustworthy man and worked his way into Othello’s trust with tricks and lies. He wore a very convincing mask; often temporarily defending the person he was trying to ruin to further his honest visage. He says to Othello, “Men should be what they seem…” (3.3.127) through these methods, Iago convinces Othello that Cassio, an officer, was having an affair with Othello’s beautiful wife Desdemona. As a vicious result, Othello is driven mad with anger and sadness and throttles Desdemona in their bed. The death and want left by Iago’s deception is vast hurting everyone involved most frequently on a mortal level. When the truth finally comes out, Othello, in his grief and remorse, ends up stabbing himself with a dagger. In the end, many die due to Iago’s deception, through villainy or despair, and none gain what they truly want because of it. This just goes to show that the mask of deception that a man wears can cause an unbelievable amount of harm, bodily and worse,
Iago’s persistence and villainous intentions made Othello become jealous of Cassio and break down his emotions towards Desdemona and want to kill her with fierce rage. Othello would not do such a crime if he knew it was a lie because Othello loves Desdemona and would die for her. Othello was madly in love with Desdemona and they were compassionate for each other, but he was misguided and confused with jealousy and hatred which steered him off course to his sinister fate. Othello cannot be justified as a bad person because of one incident, especially after all the great things he’s done and achieved for the city. Iago is the real antagonist and has become the bad man of the play as his roles are to protect the crown in which was Othello and stay loyal to fellow soldiers but throughout the play he was the complete opposite with characteristics such as being a liar, un loyal to every character in the play.
One of the means Iago uses to carry out his plan is the use the other characters. Emilia’s part in his plot is to steal Desdemona’s handkerchief, but she is not aware that she plays such an essential role. Desdemona is also an unwilling and unknowing accomplice in Iago’s plan. Her only role is to play on Othello’s tragic flaw, jealousy. The greatest use of another character is Iago’s usage of Roderigo to finance the enforcement of his plan and to do the “dirty work.'; This is probably the most unscrupulous component of his plan. It produces sympathy for the other characters because they are oblivious to Iago’s actions and the part they play in the scheme of things. At the same time, it produces a feeling of repugnance toward Iago for his scheming and calculating ways.
Iago does not only serve as the antagonist in this play, but he also is the vehicle by which the play progresses. They play in the beginning did not have much action in it because Iago was still deciding as to how he would kill Othello. Then, as his plan develops the play also progresses. He forces characters into taking actions they never would have normally considered and all the while he just sits back and maintains his innocent smile and trusting façade. And that "is how a villain is defined." A villain "can alter those actions around them without them knowing it." (Campbell 116). We saw Iago do that on several occasions. For example he was able to convince Roderigo to give him money and to try growing a beard. He also convinced Othello into thinking that Casio was an irresponsible drunk, and he convinced Desdemona into thinking he was going to do everything he could to patch things up with her and Othello. While all he was actually doing was just trying to keep Roderigo busy so he would stay out of the picture. And then with Othello he was turning friend against friend, and with Desdemona it was lover against lover. And all the while these people thought he had their best interest in mind.
Is Othello responsible for Desdemona’s death? Or is it Iago who planned to get revenge against the Moor? There are many people in the play who are responsible for Desdemona’s death. However, one of the individuals in the play unwittingly helps contribute to her death by being naive. Emilia who is Desdemona’s loyal friend fails to convince Othello that Desdemona is faithful. She is unwittingly responsible for her friend’s death because, she never mentions the handkerchief until Desdemona has been killed. Although, Iago is the master mind behind Desdemona’s death and Othello is the person who murdered her if then, it were not for Emilia who initiates Iago’s plans Desdemona would still be alive. Emilia is unwittingly responsible for Desdemona’s death because she is naïve about her husband’s actions; she is silent about the handkerchief and lacks courage to prove to Othello that Desdemona’s is innocent.
Iago intends to orchestrate the demise of Cassio and Othello. On the surface, winning a promotion was the catalyst for Iago’s rage but bringing down only Cassio does not satisfy his bloodthirsty rage. Although Iago is cunning and ruthless in his pursuit to ruin Othello, the plot spins out of his control and only gains traction when his wife, Emilia unknowingly helps him. At this point Iago is poised to fail but the possession of Desdemona’s handkerchief provides a key piece of “ocular proof (Shakespeare)” that Othello requires to be convinced of Desdemona’s infidelity. Iago loses control of the situation. His stated purpose is to suppl...
Iago is definitely to blame for the misfortune that occurs in the story. Iago disseats every character in the story. Iago’s main reason for doing so was that he felt mistreated and overlooked when Othello assigned Cassio his right hand man. So the only true character Iago truly despises is Cassio. Iago dislikes Othello, but ultimately would rather be his buddy then his enemy. Iago sees Othello as a good guy, but simply sees Othello’s pick of Cassio as just a lapse in judgement. So Iago takes it upon himself to change what he saw as wrong. The only problem is
Iago was the main character who caused all the destruction at the end of the play, however there was always some worries going along in the play because Othello was a black man and he was married to the young, very much younger than him, Desdemona. Who also is a white lady. Neither the less this essay is not about Othello and Desdemona. Iago had Othello believe that Cassio was having an affair with Desdemona. There isn't really any conclusion or reasoning for Iago's doings, perhaps besides the only reason which he knows. And that reason none of us know of. The only conclusion i can come up with on why Iago has done what he done is because he was looking out for himself. This reminds me of a saying i use to always hear. "Nothing is going to happen for yourself unless you make it happen yourself." I don't know if Iago knew what the outcome of his doings would be, which was death for him, but i do believe he did the things he did because he was looking out for himself.
In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is the antagonist and villain who causes all the trouble and disorder. Othello is the protagonist, and is the main person Iago’s destruction and revenge is aimed towards. Othello is naïve and gives everybody his trust even though he may not know them or they haven’t earned his trust yet. He often refers to Iago has “Honest” Iago, which is a direct showing of irony because Iago is not honest at all (Shakespeare, I, iii. 289). Iago is so angry that Othello didn’t give him the promotion that was given to Cassio that he plans to seek revenge against Othello. He seeks his revenge against Othello by manipulating and lying to all of the people around him including his closest friend Roderigo, Cassio, Othello’s wife Desdemona and even his own wife Emilia. In the end, Iago’s lies and manipulation led to the deaths of Roderigo, Emilia, Othello and Desdemona. This isn’t the first time many of these individual characteristics have shown up in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
His obsession with his wife was so strong that he could not help thinking about what she did with Cassio and the only way out was to kill her. In conclusion, the downfall of Othello was because of his own weaknesses. His traits were the reason why Othello was responsible for the play's tragic outcome. Iago was able to control Othello like a puppet because of his easily manipulated conscience. He chose to make the wrong decisions, trusting the wrong people.
Iago has been to blame for the downfall of Othello because he is the one that created the jealousy within Othello. Iago started this because he was jealous of Othello because he was not made lieutenant, and Cassio was. Iago has been selfish and takes it upon himself to get revenge against Othello.