Iago is the central character in Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, a lieutenant in the service of Othello. He is a boor and a plebeian by nature, forced to be in the Moor’s service, hating him for the humiliation he suffers at the same time. He weaves an intrigue around Othello and Desdemona, and the lieutenant Cassio gets caught in it without even knowing it. Iago is the opposite of Othello – cunning, crafty, and jealous, ready for any baseness; His motive is the thirst for destruction:
Virtue? A fig!
‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus (Shakespeare, lines 426 – 427).
He has no desire to seize the treasure – his intention is only to deprive the possessor of the prize of the pleasure that his possession provides. “For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am (Shakespeare, lines 95 – 98).
In Shakespeare’s portrayal of Iago’s character, the readers immediately notice an apparent contradiction: even though he is the meanest and most vile scoundrel imaginable, he nevertheless enjoys the unconditional trust of everyone around him. As long as his interests do not influence Iago, he can genuinely make a difference to all who ask him for advice with his knowledge of the world and the clarity of his views. He does this gladly as it flatters his vanity, feels his superiority in this, and finds in it a reinforcement of the correctness and steadiness of his cynical view of life (Kim 199). Moving on from the way other people see Iago to the way he is by nature, it must be mentioned that Iago is an exceptionally erotic character, understood in the most vulgar sense of the word. Indirectly, this conclusion flows from the fact that Yago suspects that everyone has an excess of sexual desire; he thinks this desire overrides everyone else’s and is as strong as his own. And so, from his point of view, politeness and kindness to women are forerunners of lust (Kim 200). So the courtesy of Otello and Cassio to Iago’s wife is sufficient proof for the latter that they are on intimate terms with her. In short, he can understand or explain friendship or kindness only in connection with some selfish goal or plan. Speaking of racism as a possible motivation for Iago’s behavior, it is worth noting that it is not the primary and only source of its manifestation. Being in a race with Othello for promotion, the hero uses the hatred of other characters towards mixed races and black people, such as Othello, to achieve the loss of the latter’s position.
Works Cited
Kim, SanghHyun. “Rereading Othello through Bernard Jackson’s Iago.” Sungshin Humanities Research, vol. 42, 2020, pp. 195–214. Crossref. Web.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2020.