Revision:Othello - Iago Notes

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Summary of Character

• Iago is a man of opportunity, he manipulates the situations he faces to best suit his plans.
• He is very manipulative and caniving, yet all of the other characters deem him to be honest.
• He is very jealous, and seeks revenge from the very beginning of the play, to avenge himself.

Key Quotes

• "honest Iago"
• "a man he is of honesty and trust"
• "Fie upon thee- slanderer!"
• "O damned Iago! O inhuman dog!"
• "not everyone can be a master, nor can all masters be truly followed"
• "I am not what i am"
• "I shall be wise, for honesty's a fool"
• "I follow him to serve my turn upon him"
• "nothing can or shall content my soul until i am evened with him, wife for wife"
• "And what's he then that says i play the villain When this advice is free I give and honest."
• "Heaven is my judge"

Key Themes

• Appearance/Seeming
• Revenge
• Jealousy

Key Critic's Quotes for Iago

• "The cool malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and vengeance" Johnson
• "Iago is an aesthete of evil" Hazlitt
• "The joker in the pack, a practical joker of a particularly appauling kind"- W.H. Auden
• "the motive hunting of motiveless malignity" -Coleridge
• "Iago was inconsistent" - Rymer
• "he [Iago] was despised with burning hatred and burning tears"- A.C. Bradley

Discussion Points on Iago

• Iago is undoubtedly the catalyst to all the action in the play. The Machiavellian villain, who is a compelling and sophisticated villain. He appears to be inherently evil. He enjoys having an audience (Rodrigo) to outline his devious plots to. However, at the end of the play his is mysterious as he refuses to talk.

• Professional jealousy is his initial motive for disgracing Cassio; motives for destroying Othello’s happiness are based on negative urges. But some critics have argued that Iago destroys Othello’s marriage because he has homosexual feelings toward Othello.

• Iago ego is wounded due to the denial of promotion, his schemes and manipulations allow him to establish his sense of power and authority over the other characters.

• Iago is successful because he can play a number of roles convincingly and is able to adapt to different situations. He enjoys his ability to hoodwink other’s into believing his is ‘honest Iago’. With Cassio, he is bluff, coarse and genial. He offers plausible, practical solutions for his problems. With Montano and Lodovico he stresses he has the State and Othello's best interests at heart. His ego is absent when dealing with these people. They are above him socially and professionally. This is however, deliberate. With Rodrigo and Emilia, he is self-serving, materialistic and cynical.

• He is a slanderer, able to destroy with negative words all the reputations which are built on positive ones e.g. Desdemona’s reputation as ‘virtuous’ into ‘lewd minx’.

• Iago is also a vice figure, whose aim is to lure every one of the characters onto the wrong part. For example convincing Othello that his is wife is having an adulterous affair with Cassio.

• He is humble and pleasant in public but scheming in private (hypocrite).

• Iago has difficulty seeing the individual only the stereotypes, e.g. all women are false and all black men are evil, here is therefore unable to relate to the real people because of his prejudice.

• He could be considered a former admirer of Othello, but is devastated by being rejected, so in turn transforms his love into hate. ‘I will make the Moore love me hate me, respect me and thank me’.

• He is clearly a misogynist, who has a deep rooted hatred of women, although he dies not explicitly state this. ‘You rise to play and go to bed to work’. He is also a megalomaniac in love with power for its own sake.

• He often speaks in soliloquies, giving us his perspective and in part making the audience his accomplices, drawing them into his web.

• It is Iago’s talent for understanding and manipulating the desires of those around him that makes him both a powerful and a compelling figure. Iago is able to take the handkerchief from Emilia and know that he can deflect her questions; he is able to tell Othello of the handkerchief and know that Othello will not doubt him. Though the most inveterate liar, Iago inspires all of the play’s characters the trait that is most lethal to Othello: trust.

Comments

Originally posted by *~vicki~* on TSR Forums.