Character Analysis Of Honest Iago In Shakespeare's Othello

Everyone loves a good plot twist, and Othello has a fairly huge plot twist. “Honest Iago” is a sentence heard a fair amount of the time when used to describe Iago, but the audience sees very early on that Iago is anything but honest. Iago is seen as one of the most hated villains ever as he was extremely devise and no one ever really understands why as his motives are never quite clear. “Iago stands supreme among Shakespeare 's evil characters because the greatest intensity and subtlety of imagination have gone to his making, and because he illustrates in the most perfect combination the two facts concerning evil which seem to have impressed Shakespeare most.” ("Iago Character Introduction.")

The peculiar thing about Iago is that we are never give a clear idea of what is his motive. Usually the villain has a very clear motive, something like he grew up in a rough family. Though we are never given that with Iago. There are three very possible motives that he might have had. The main motive we can see is with the Moor’s decision to pick Cassio instead of Iago for the role of his lieutenant. Iago believed that he was much more suitable for the job as he had more knowledge

“I hate the Moor: it is thought abroad: there is gossip. He has done my office: I know not if 't be true” (Shakespeare 1.3.363-365). It would make sense for him to be mad at the Moor and even perhaps plan to kill the Moor over this, but we can see in other scenes that Iago clearly does not care about his wife. Iago often refers to his wife as a wench (Shakespeare 3.3.330), and believes a woman is only useful when she is pleasing her man (Shakespeare 2.1.117). He clearly did not see her as anything more than someone there to do what he said whenever she was told. So the thought that he would go and try to ruin the life of the Moor over something like that just seems