“Honest Iago” has an evil ability to expose personal flaws about particular characters in order to spark their own downfalls. He turns each character’s surface beauty into pitch, more so a pitch that is inside of them throughout the play (Ancona). Hamlet would agree that it is as if a mirror is help up to nature, “to show virtue her (own) feature, scorn her/ own image, and the very age and body of the time/ his form and pressure” (Hamlet 3.2.24-26). Because Iago is an antagonist, it is more common for the reader to not comply with any of his ideas. The reader would prefer to remain on the side proposing justice, the protagonists. However, before Othello dies, why is it justified that he describes himself as “Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,/ Perplexed in the extreme” (Othello 5.2.405-406)? …show more content…
Even though Desdemona pleads with honesty—“I never did/ Offend you in my life, never loved Cassio/ But with such general warranty of heaven/ As I might love”—Othello still feels the potency of jealousy, and refuses to listen to her words (Othello 5.2.73-76). In addition, Iago also turns Cassio’s surface beauty inside out. Cassio is known as the brawny and handsome character. His attractive looks provokes the reader to believe that he is innocent and possesses no flaws. However, Iago contradicts this image after Othello desposes Cassio from his position. Cassio only cares about himself, his reputation. Without a good reputation, Cassio believes that he is no one. We could go even further to claim that Cassio would prefer to be a confirmed bachelor, for he would be able to sustain his self-image and still have “strumpets”: "I marry
Act iii, scene iii, lines 108-131 of William Shakespeare’s “Othello” unquestionably shows Iago’s trickery and deceptiveness which is masked through his reputation for honesty, reliability and direct speaking. This section not only shows Iago’s slow but powerful act of deception, but also shows the jealousy and insecurities slowly depriving Othello’s inner peace and balance.
In Othello, Iago is Shakespeare’s most malicious character and serves as a vehicle to these two themes. Iago despises Othello; he has a strong will to destroy Othello’s life, yet the motive behind his plan goes unexplained. Iago is a great manipulator of the tongue and lies to everyone in order to advance his plan; however, every character in the play considers Iago an honest character, and Othello even associates Iago with light and eyesight. Othello continuously asks Iago to explain or make something clearer. Until the very end, Iago appears to be honest and helpful to the other characters, but underneath this seemingly harmless façade, Iago is a demon with the strongest will; he will stop at nothing until he ruins Othello’s life. Iago uses a positive appearance to enact his
In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is the antagonist and villain who causes all the trouble and disorder. Othello is the protagonist, and is the main person Iago’s destruction and revenge is aimed towards. Othello is naïve and gives everybody his trust even though he may not know them or they haven’t earned his trust yet. He often refers to Iago has “Honest” Iago, which is a direct showing of irony because Iago is not honest at all (Shakespeare, I, iii. 289). Iago is so angry that Othello didn’t give him the promotion that was given to Cassio that he plans to seek revenge against Othello. He seeks his revenge against Othello by manipulating and lying to all of the people around him including his closest friend Roderigo, Cassio, Othello’s wife Desdemona and even his own wife Emilia. In the end, Iago’s lies and manipulation led to the deaths of Roderigo, Emilia, Othello and Desdemona. This isn’t the first time many of these individual characteristics have shown up in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
Fred West addresses the fact of Iago misrepresentation, “It is not sufficient to simply drape Iago in allegorical trappings and proclaim him Mister Evil or a Machiavel or a Vice. Such a limited view of Iago is an injustice to the complexity of his character, since Shakespeare’s studies in personality are acclaimed by psychologists for their accuracy and profundity” (27). West seems to be reminding us that just seeing Iago as the representation of evil within the play of “Othello” is the wrong way to paint him. Iago is a man wronged by Othello in the fact that he was not chosen to be Othello’s lieutenant, which is what put the dastardly idea into Iago’s head to trick them all and bring them to their knees. As Iago tells Roderigo within the first act and scene of “Othello”,
Iago uses the word "honest" in act three of Othello in three primary ways. The first way he uses it is to mean honourable, about Cassio. He uses this meaning of the word to force Othello to doubt Cassio's honesty, and question his hounorablility. The second way is to mean faithful, both about Desdemona and Cassio. Iago uses it in the context that the two may be "truthful," again to make Othello doubt. The third way is Iago's most effective use, which is to use honest in the context to mean truthful, as in, he has told Othello the truth. However, Shakespeare has created tremendous dramatic irony, for we know that Iago is being anything except truthful. The three uses of the word honest are used largely in the subtext of the act, they are used by Iago to force Othello to question his wife's integrity, and honesty. Shakespeare uses the word by Iago to plant tremendous doubt in Othello's mind. The word is also used by Iago in the action line. His objective is constantly to make Othello think things without actually being told them, and Iago's parroting of the word and constant useage do this quite nicely.
Iago and the Literary Tradition of a Villain in William Shakespeare's Othello In this essay, I am going to explain how Iago conforms to the literary tradition of a villain. Firstly, to answer this question, we must understand what exactly is meant by the term 'villain'. The Collins Plain English Dictionary states that a villain is someone who 'deliberately sets out to harm other people.'
The most interesting character in the play Othello is the villain, Iago, commonly referred to as "Honest Iago". Iago is smart, and well tuned to human behavior, and uses this knowledge to his advantage. He manipulates others to do things to help him reach his final goal; revenge on Othello and Cassio. His greatest tool in doing so is his reputation as an honest and trustworthy person. Othello believes Iago is a person "of exceeding honesty, and knows all qualities, with the learned spirit of human dealings." [Act III, Scene iii]. The other characters believe this as well, and Iago becomes a confidant for most of them.
Without a doubt, one of the main themes that runs throughout William Shakespeare’s tragic play, Othello, is that of honesty. In the play, the most interesting character is Iago, who is commonly called and known as "Honest Iago." However, this could not be farther from the truth. Through some carefully thought-out words and actions, Iago is able to manipulate others to do things in a way that benefits and moves him closer to his own goals. He is smart and an expert at judging the characters of others. Because of this, Iago pushes everyone to their tragic end.
“I am not what I am,” proclaims one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most enigmatic villains, Iago, in the tragedy Othello. Iago’s journey for revenge enables him to become capable of immoral acts, and whilst his malevolence excites us, we are no more intrigued by his attributes than we are of the play’s tragic hero, Othellos’. Rather, both characters’ confrontation with jealousy and their subsequent moral demise as a result of failing to control such an emotion provides the true excitement for audiences. Iago’s spiteful manipulation of Othello makes him a multifaceted character — whose corrupt attributes make the audience examine their own morality. However, the same can be said of Othello; his failure to withstand Iago’s ‘pouring of pestilence’
Iago has been excellent at saying the what is needed to get to people, he misleads them to get a reaction he wants out of them. He is clever with his words to avoid confrontation that can easily happen. “Othello 's confusion is the human experience of language. In other words, language itself, not the outside world, determines meaning” (Christofides 2). Iago uses his words against Othello to get him to do Iago’s doings. Iago has an eloquence with
put money in thy purse- nor he his to her: It is a violent commencement,
In a casual reading of Othello, it may seem that the character of Cassio is not sufficiently well drawn, because, for reasons connected with his portrayal of Iago, Shakespeare delays the full characterization of Cassio until almost the end of the play. However, we have a number of brief revelations of his personality that mark him distinctly – in his genuine anxiety for Othello’s safety, in his abstaining from taking part in the bold and suggestive comments of Iago to the two women as they wait for Othello’s ship and, a little later, in his sincere regret about the loss of his reputation after he has partaken of the wine which Iago has forced upon him. (85-86)
Throughout Othello, Iago is the most prominent and perplexing villian in Shakespearean history. His redeeming qualies enables him to allure the characters such as Roderigo, Cassio and Othello through his morality. As an audience we are introduced to his contempt and his hunger for revenge despite his lack of proof. Iago symbolizes evil and brutality. So what makes him a crucial character in the play. His understanding of manipulation and his brilliance makes him an important role in the play since he's willing to to climb up the stairs to get his general, who he hates.
To clearly illustrate Iago’s manipulations as a skeptic Othello and Desdemona are the last of the puppeteer’s targets to take down. Both Othello and Desdemona suffer from “the idols of the theatre” (Aph 44, Bacon 152). Bacon defines the idols of theater as “idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas and philosophies, and also the wrong laws of demonstration” (Aph 44, Bacon 152). Othello seems to have clear principles that he abides by and when shown that his principles are not allowing him to have the life he thought he would he has a different set of principles that he follows for revenge. “Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it, That he would steal away so guilty like, Seeing you coming” (Act 3, Scene 3). This
Humans have the ability to be good, evil, or any shade therein; consequently, if they choose the path of evil they leave innocent victims in their wake. Iago is such a person. In Othello, Iago constantly took advantage of every situation and every angle that he could to produce a vicious outcome. While the other characters remained oblivious, Iago’s conversations among them separately, as well as his asides, shed light on a major theme of the play: people are not what they appear to be. When Iago talks to Roderigo, the reader is aware that he is using this character to achieve and afford his dastardly plans. The perfect example of this is the speech Iago gives to Roderigo (1.3.327-346) where he foreshadows the plot to frame Desdemona with adultery, reinforces the prejudice against Othello, and introduces dramatic irony in that he reveals the type of person he is to the reader.