Iago Is A Villain

At one point in your life, you have probably told a little white lie or harmlessly tricked someone into doing something. However, there are some people, Machiavellians, who are master manipulators that will resort to anything in order to reach a goal. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago can be seen as a dominantly Machiavellian villain.

Iago is the antagonist of the play, and one of the most evil Shakespearean villains. Iago is extremely clever in the way he uses unsuspecting power- especially psychological power. He gets into people’s heads in many dishonest ways- by spreading false rumours, telling lies and psychologically tricking people and secretly controlling certain situations. His power to manipulate is a key point in the play, as it results in major consequences and the deaths of some main characters. Iago’s schemes are multi-levelled- he conspires with roderigo, and makes him believe that Desdemona will take him back. On another level, he leads Othello to believe his wife is having an affair with Cassio. He uses his wife Emilia (unknown to her), to bring back the handkerchief he uses to deceive Othello. Iago is an extremely resourceful and talented man, but he uses these resources and talents in detrimental ways. Iago is constantly referred to by numerous characters as ‘honest’. He himself also refers to honesty. Numerous characters believe that they know and trust Iago and that he would not lie, nor deceive them. Iago’s soliloquies also provide invaluable insight into his wicked mind and evil schemes and plans.

“Iago's deception is potent because of his patience, his cleverness, and what seems to be his intrinsic love of elegant manipulation” (Shmoop). Throughout the story Iago manipulates the characters of Othello as if they were dolls in a little girl’s game of make-believe. He does this, not by persuading each character to do is evil biding, but by playing off of their fears and personal insecurities with eachother. His manipulating ranges from his best friend, Othello, to his own wife, Emilia. The way Iago plays off of everyone’s flaws, he doesn’t have to work very hard, because his antics either seem like a reasonable solution to the characters’ problem or takes advantage of them without them even realizing it.

Iago however, wants to gain power and control over Othello, and does so throughout the course of the play. One way Iago achieves this is through equivocation, or the use of ambiguous expressions used to mislead Othello. Christofides also says that “Iago displays his fiendishness from the start as a combination of equivocations and lies make his schemes of falsified connections possible.” (Christofides 2). Iago’s equivocations ultimately lead Othello to kill Desdemona, but the appearance of truth in Iago’s lies give Othello the appearance that Iago is on his side, when Iago is really against him.

Iago is jealous, dishonest, duplicitous, manipulative, and evil. His jealousy is shown when he is furious of Cassio becoming the military lieutenant, instead of him. His dishonesty can be seen when Iago continuously lies to Othello about his wife cheating on him. His duplicity is revealed when Iago praises Othello in front of him, but badmouths him when around other characters. He is manipulative, as he uses Roderigo’s thirst for Desdemona to do his dirty work: fighting Cassio. His evil nature is portrayed when he ruins the life of Othello, through convincing him to kill his wife, Desdemona.

In Shakespeare’s Othello, the antagonist, Iago, seeks to create chaos in Venice. When Othello overlooks him and promotes Cassio to lieutenancy although Iago has more military experience, Iago becomes enraged and begins seeking revenge. To accomplish this revenge, Iago attempts to turn everyone against each other. He believes that, if he seems like a good person and gets on the good side of everyone, he will be able to oust Cassio from lieutenancy, claim his rightful position, and cuckold Othello. One way that he does this is through his conversations about reputation. To Cassio, Iago believes that reputation means nothing. However, to Othello, Iago cares a lot about keeping a good reputation. This shows that Iago cares less about being an honest man than he cares about manipulating people. Iago tries to manipulate people by gaining their trust and telling them what they want to hear until he plants his ideas into their heads.

Many have said that Iago is an artist of Evil. He made it crystal clear that he holds no love or loyalty all through the play for title character Othello. Reason behind being, Othello unfairly passed him over for a promotion and went ahead making Cassio his lieutenant even though he, unlike Iago has not much experience in this field. Iago who was once a devoted soldier under Othello’s demand had full confidence in himself for being the rightful person to take upon the promoted lieutenant position as he be believed he deserved it after all he was the better soldier as well as his relationship with othello would have gotten him the there. Assuming many wrongs, Iago was infuriated when denied the role and it let to bringing out the worse of him.

Iago is a good name for an evil character in another story. In Othello, Iago’s first characteristic from the story to make his name a good evil character is that fact that he lies. Throughout the story he falsifies information to try to maneuver his way to the lieutenant position. First he lies to Rodrigo. Rodrigo is “a jealous suitor of Desdemona” (Briggs) and tries to get Iago’s help in return for money. Iago tells Rodrigo that he will but does not tell him his true intent. Iago does not help Rodrigo. He makes it look like he is helping him but really he is using Rodrigo for his own plan. The second characteristic to make Iago a good villain name is the fact that he manipulates people. Iago manipulates both Cassio and Othello in Othello. He manipulates Cassio by getting him to

Iago appears to be a good and kind man. In reality, he is quite the opposite. Near the beginning, when Iago is speaking to Cassio about his plan to wake up Brabantio to scare him and alert him of Othello and Desdemona’s marriage, he has some interesting things to say. One of these things is, “I may seem to love and obey him, but in fact, I’m just serving him to get what I want. If my outward appearance started reflecting what I really felt, soon enough I’d be wearing my heart on my sleeve for birds to peck at. No, it’s better to hide it. I’m not who I appear to be.” This is just one of several admittances of being deceitful and manipulative. Later on, in act 1, scene 3, Iago talks Roderigo out of suicide over Desdemona. Iago asks him to get money for him. After Roderigo leaves, Iago then reveals his true intentions, grifting Roderigo. He says, “That’s how I always do it, getting money from fools. I’d be wasting my skills dealing with an idiot like that if I couldn’t get something useful out of him.” These quotes reveal the true manipulative nature of Iago, and how he tricks people, even his own conspirator, into thinking he has good intentions for them.

Imagine a promotion someone worked all their life to get was ripped away at the last second by someone else. The promotion was something they had put all of their effort towards getting, and they rightfully deserved it. This is how the character, Iago, in William Shakespeare's play Othello felt. Instead of quietly cursing the person who gave away his position, Iago acted against the main character, Othello, in order to satisfy his thirst for revenge. Through Iago’s quest for revenge, he manipulates the other characters, acts on his psychopathic anger, and impersonates being a friend to all of the characters. This reveals his complexity as a villain and enables him to justify his actions and get what he wants.

Iago’s manipulation and deception clearly therefore derives from his jealousy for Cassio and the sense that he has been betrayed by Othello. So, he seeks vengeance using anyone he can to attain this personal gain. From the beginning, it is clear that Iago is a deceitful man who says “Sblood!” as opposed to Roderigo’s “Tush!”, the audience already see his powers of deception as he explains how he is even worse off than Roderigo. His furious language: “A fellow almost damned in a fair wife” manages to convince the intellectual Roderigo who is presented along with Cassio in contrast to Iago. They are arguably used as foils to emphasise Iago’s deceitful and manipulative traits as shown from the beginning. The reason Iago is manipulative and

Iago made people believe he was an honest man. He manipulated everyone. Iago hated Othello and Cassio. “And nothing can or shall

William Shakespeare has some of the most memorable villains in all of drama. One of them is known as Iago. Many people argue that Iago was the protagonist but that simply is not true. People also think that since Iago manipulates Othello, they think the reasoning behind this is because Iago truly thinks he is being honest, kind and steering him onto the right path. This is not right since Iago knows what he is doing. Iago is the villain in Shakespeare’s play, Othello, uses morals to prove that Iago is the villain.

The success of Iago's deceptive honesty is most clearly seen in the final scene of the play in which the truth of his dishonesty is revealed. So successful was Iago's scheme that Othello can only think that Iago must have been a devil. 'I look down towards his feet- but… If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee'.

Iago's character is consumed with hatred and jealousy. He is jealous of Cassio for obtaining the position of Lieutenant over him, jealous of Othello, believing that he has slept with his wife and jealous of Othello's held position despite his race (Zender, K.F 1994). Most people ask themselves if Iago is evil? Most will say yes. Iago has very few redeeming qualities, he has the ability to charm and convince people of his loyalty and honesty but for the audience, we are immediately introduced to his vitriol and desire for revenge despite his lack of proved reason.