The Motivations of Iago from “Othello”

The Motivations of Iago from “Othello”

Introduction

One of the most shocking and unforgettable world literatures is without a doubt Iago; A paradigmatic character that sums up one of our worst traits as human beings. One wonders why some characters are recognized as the true representation of our vices. If we are all virtuosos should not be able to recognize a vicious person. The truth is that all somewhere in our heart that we have some evil character. Although we recognize ashamed recognize in these characters our little weaknesses. Perhaps they are tyrants, and we just about demanding bosses in our work, but the relationship exists. The classic characters are enlarged reflection of our virtues and our vices. And without doubt, Iago is one of the greats.

Iago is one of the central characters of the tremendous tragedy Othello written by the great bard William Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's Iago is the Moro Ensign of a republic that serves western and falling in love with a beautiful Venetian woman. A story that could be great in the triumph of tolerance and loyalty beyond the political and social divisions becomes a brilliant study of several of the worst human vices: greed, envy and jealousy (Warren, 1995).

Discussion

Iago may represent many forms of evil, but he is particularly opposed to the Pauline construction of goodness. Shakespeare's text repeatedly calls Iago a devil, but a famous 1602 Protestant tract warns: “The divell under the habit of the Jesuits, doth goe about to circumvent all the world,” and one critic has observed that Iago resembles the specifically jesuitical Machiavellians who appear in polemical tracts of this period. Phillip Stubbes warned that “Jesuites” were “hollow harted friends [who] when they intend destruction then will they cover it with the cloke or garment of amity & friendship” (Matar, 2004). Iago covers his misdeeds with clever equivocations, proselytizes for his destructive assumptions about congruity and condignity, and makes his victims pay and empower him for these illusory blessings. By associating such Jesuits with Catholicism in general and by misrepresenting that doctrine as sharing the Pelagian tendencies of prominent Jesuits such as Ignatius Loyola and Luis de Molina, Shakespeare can make his audience into more committed Protestants. The transaction may be mostly subliminal—we think we are caring about human kindness rather than about factional theology—but the best propaganda always is (Loomis, 2002).

Shakespeare, characteristically, uses the opening scene to establish the theme. The ostensible topic is Roderigo's erotic envy, but (unlike in the Cinthio source) the primary focus is on a different form of unrequital: the villain Iago's anger that his lord has not honored his good works with the ascendancy he thought he had purchased (Warren, 1995). “By the faith of man,” Iago asserts, “I know my price, I am worth no worse a place” (I.i.10-11). Surely it is no mere coincidence that Shakespeare has Iago incongruously invoke faith here (and “God's will” twice in three lines at II.iii. 139-43), nor is it a mere coincidence that when the ...