Iago in William Shakespeare's Othello
William Shakespeare, born: 1564 died: 1616, is considered one of the greatest writers who has ever lived. He had a unique way of putting things into words. All of his plays, sonnets, and poems have gotten great recognition. But when Shakespeare wrote Othello he created one of the most controversial villains of all times; Iago. He is best described as disturbing, ruthless, and amoral. No other character can even come close to his evil (Iago: The 1).
Iago, in the play Othello, is a very intriguing villain. Even though he is often referred to as "Honest" Iago, he lies, cheats, steals, bullies, and even kills just to get what he wants (Iago as 1). Iago starts off being evil when he finds out that Othello gave Cassio the position of lieutenant that he felt he deserved. To take this position from Cassio he must not let his conscience get in his way. This is not a problem with Iago because he has no conscience. Iago is able to manipulate anyone who gets in the way of his goals. He does this over and over during the course of the play. He uses all the characters to destroy Othello. He used the tension that was already existent to bring him down. And he also uses his intense sense of intuition.
Iago is an excellent judge of character. He also makes it seem like he posseses characteristics that he really doesn’t have. Iago often wonders why someone would pretend to be something they are not, when in fact that is exactly what he represents. He has many fronts that he can put up. Every character in Othello had a relationship with the different sides of his personality. He uses this to his advantage in the case of Roderigo loving Desdemona. By knowing that Roderigo is madly in love with her, he knows he will do anything to be with Desdemona. Iago says about Roderigo, " Thus do I ever make a fool of my purse;" (1.3.353). By going on what he knows about Roderigo, he is able to get money and jewels from him. He doesn’t even think twice before taking things from someone who supposedly considers Iago to be his friend.
Iago is also capable of thinking very quickly in any situation. This makes him able to handle himself when something he does not expect happens. He can recognize the advantages of trust and uses it to gain what he wants. He has it in his mind that if he has everyone's trust no one will ever expect him to be at...
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...ll the people that are in a higher position and are more powerful than he is. Iago refuses to cooperate with those people that do posses more power than he does. This is just one of the many examples of Iago’s distorted ways of thinking.
Considering all the hatred and jealousy Iago possesses, how could anyone see good in such a ruthless, merciless sociopath. When William Shakespeare created Iago, he could not have made such an ideal villain. Iago stands for the eponymy of evil. He represents hatred and all that is bad. He lacks any credibility for his motives and takes great pleasure in his ability to destroy the lives of Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia. He created all the madness in the play but was never caught until the end finally arrived. Iago said it himself, “ I am not what I am” (1.1.62). He proves this clearly that he seems like he is always watching out for people when really he is out to devastate the lives of so many. Even though Iago was successful in eliminating Othello and the others, he was not victorious in the end because the problems he caused, deaths especially, cannot be resolved. Ironically everything that Iago pretended to be led to his end.
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
For instance, in “Industrialization of the Country,” written by Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin discussed the need for Russia to industrialize in order to compete with the rising, surrounding nations of the world such as Germany, France, England, and the U.S. Stalin believed that Russia must do whatever it takes, even if it meant going to war, to make sure Russia did not fall too far behind the other world powers, both technologically and economically, in the race for industrialization; he believed that doing so would result in a return to capitalism for Russia. He believed that winning the industrialization race was the final missing piece to the puzzle that could propel socialism towards its victory in Russia (Stalin, p. 331). In order to accelerate the industrialization process, Stalin created a Five-Year Plan in 1928, which involved the collectivization of agriculture, a policy in which three to five percent of the wealthiest farmers were either killed, sent to labor camps or sent for resettlement on inferior soils (PWH, p.
In Othello, Iago is Shakespeare’s most malicious character and serves as a vehicle to these two themes. Iago despises Othello; he has a strong will to destroy Othello’s life, yet the motive behind his plan goes unexplained. Iago is a great manipulator of the tongue and lies to everyone in order to advance his plan; however, every character in the play considers Iago an honest character, and Othello even associates Iago with light and eyesight. Othello continuously asks Iago to explain or make something clearer. Until the very end, Iago appears to be honest and helpful to the other characters, but underneath this seemingly harmless façade, Iago is a demon with the strongest will; he will stop at nothing until he ruins Othello’s life. Iago uses a positive appearance to enact his
Of all of Shakespeare 's villainous characters, Iago is one of the most unforgettable ones. The deception he constantly shows throughout the play, confirms the complexities of Iago’s character that he is not simply a man seeking vengeance. Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom argues that Iago is an artist of evil. In the same way that some people enjoy writing songs or filming movies, Iago enjoys ruining people 's lives(Bloom). Iago conducts his evil acts with a sense of artistry in the sense he appreciates the cleverness of every particular step he takes in his scheme for vengeance. While the perceived reason for deceiving Othello is that he has been passed over for promotion to lieutenant, Iago’s motivations are never clearly expressed and
...n the end of the play. Iago is not really evil or the vice character he is the misunderstood and wonderful character who can only be seen through a certain lens before it all goes back to black and white and good and evil fights one another for the main stage again. Shakespeare pulled many themes into this story but in all truth I believe that Iago is true main character, not Othello or Cassio, but Iago with all of his problems and vices, he is the truest expression of being human.
Iago is the perfect villain in the sense that he is a true outsider from humanity. You can almost respect him in the fact that he can do such wrong with absolutely no recognition of the destruction he has caused. Plus he is able to manipulate people’s good qualities such as trust and love and use them for his own immoral benefit. It may be that Iago himself does not possess any of these good qualities so he cannot understand goodness or it might be that he is merely jealous of the beautiful relationships and noble people surrounding him and he has had enough. Whatever the reason, Iago purposely puts himself outside of humanity because he is egotistical in nature and feels that he deserves to disrespect everyone.
Everyone involved with Iago separately thinks that he is doing them favors, when actually he is a backstabbing, conniving person who is the essence of evil and is often referred to as half-man, half-devil. 'I am not what I am.' This is a quote that should not be taken for granted. In this quote, Iago describes himself as a demonic Satan-like person contradicting God's quote 'I am that I am.' Indeed, Iago represents the very essence of the play's theme: appearance versus reality. In reality he is the cunning, untrustworthy, selfish, and plotting evil that the audience gets to know through his soliloquies, but in his appearance he is that same old, trustworthy, run of the mill Iago that they think they know so well. In fact, Othello, after he murders his own wife, accredits Iago as, 'An honest man he is, and hates the slime/ That sticks on filthy deeds.' Inopportunely for Othello, who seems to trust Iago so, Iago is the exact opposite of what Othello takes him to be. Iag...
In William Shakespeare's play "Othello," we are introduced to one of the plays most convoluted villains, Iago. Iago is able to employ wicked behavior on specific characters of the play without them knowing that any harm is being done. Iago's craft is that he has a way of manipulating characters with just his words. We learn later that the chaos generated by Iago was a result from Iago's own jealousy and insecurities. Iago's scheming and vindictive tendencies later leads to the deaths of Roderigo, Desdemona, and Othello. All the acts in "Othello" contain an evil plan that was devised by Iago. That in terms is ironic because in the play he is often known as "a man of honesty and trust" (1.3.284). The audience as a spectator
In Shakespeare’s play Othello there is a main character named Iago. In this play, Iago is the instigator. From the very beginning the readers can see that he is single minded and determined. Iago portrays an act of being persuasive and helpful to the other characters in the play, yet as the audience we see his hatred, selfishness, and jealousy. He succeeds in fooling the other characters with his “loyalty” and “honesty” and this is what makes him one of Shakespeare’s greatest villains.
From these eleven soliloquies the audience is pulled back and forth concerning their opinions of Iago’s character. He plays on the audiences pity, however also shows them his darker side. In the end, the audience is left with no doubt that Iago is nothing but evil and manipulative. I suppose one could say Iago was the true definition of a sociopath and cared for no one but himself. Not once did he show remorse or care for any other character in the play. The entire time he thought of schemes to get other characters to commit murder and be murdered in order to acquire his goal of gaining Othello’s title. His use of darkness and light, and deeper motives combine with his exterior ones exposed in his soliloquies, truly made him a hard character to analyze and predict, but allowed the audience to certainly place him as the detestable antagonist at the end.
Iago, the evil villain of Shakespeare's Othello, is more than just a villain. In many ways he is the most intelligent and appealing character in the play. Iago shows superiority over the rest of the characters in the play. He has the ability to manipulate the characters in the play, therefore controlling the play with every sequence of events. His intelligence shines through his ability to deceive, his ability to strategize, and his ability to twist the truth. Iago is appealing to the characters of the pay because he gives them what they want. Iago is appealing to the reader as well. His character is totally unconflicted about being evil, making him known to some authors as the villain of all villains. Iago is, in many ways, the most intelligent and appealing character in the play.
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.
From the first scene of the play to the last, Iago is able to be trusted by everyone. This is one of the many reasons why Iago is so successful in his schemes, he is always trusted. In the first scene of the play we learn that Iago is helping Roderigo, win the love of Desdemona. Roderigo is trusting Iago with his own money to gain the love of a woman, which is already loved by another man. Roderigo is not so smart to realize that he will not be able to get Desdemona, but Iago is able to get his scheme moving. We continue to see how much trust Roderigo puts into Iago because later on in the play we learn that he gave jewelry to Iago to give to Desdemona. Iago...
One person Iago deceives is Roderigo. Throughout the play, Iago tells him that he hates Othello and that Roderigo should make some money so he could give gifts to Desdemona, who he admires from afar. Thinking that this is sound advice, Roderigo does just that. However, Iago is actually keeping the gifts that Roderigo plans to give Desdemona for himself. Eventually, Roderigo begins to catch on to the act and confronts Iago, but he falls right into Iago’s trap again when he tells him that killing Cassio will help him win over Desdemona. Roderigo is then lead to his death by the hands of "Honest Iago."
Shakespeare Othello was an act of many evil traits, including betrayal, manipulation and jealousy. Evil can be described as an act of someone who causes grievance, destruction, or impairment for one owns satisfaction; Iago, unquestionably, fits the description. Othello represented these traits through character, Iago, as he reveals his true nature of evil by diminishing people lives and becoming the downfall of many people around him. “Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light” (I, iii, 394-396). Though Iago may not have a purpose of participating in many of his act of evil, he presents it as a self-obsessed driven supremacy. He plots to destroy Othello and to gain dominance by observing each weakness from Othello, and takes advantage of it. He uses his aid of human nature to help with his evil schemes and plots throughout the play. Because he identified Othello’s weaknesses and was able to use verbal persuasion to not only gain Othello’s trust, but to also use that as a benefit to what he wanted to accomplish. It is great importan...