29 Jan Othello showed great trust in Iago, one of the most sinful villains | Part B’
Iago is one of Shakespeare’s most sinister villains, often considered such because of the unique trust that Othello places in him, which he betrays while maintaining his reputation for honesty and dedication. Shakespeare contrasts Iago with Othello’s nobility and integrity. With 1,097 lines, Iago has more lines in the play than Othello himself.
Iago is a schemer and manipulator, as he is often referred to as “honest Iago”, displaying his skill at deceiving other characters so that not only do they not suspect him, but they count on him as the person most likely to be truthful.
In discussing The Tragedy of Othello, scholars have long debated Iago’s role—highlighting the complexity of his character and manipulativeness. Fred West contends that Shakespeare was not content with simply portraying another “stock” morality figure, and that he, like many dramatists, was particularly interested in the workings of the human mind. Thus, according to West, Iago, who sees nothing wrong with his own behaviour, is “an accurate portrait of a psychopath”,[6] who is “devoid of conscience, with no remorse”.[6] West believes that “Shakespeare had observed that there exist perfectly sane people in whom fellow-feeling of any kind is extremely weak while egoism is virtually absolute, and thus he made Iago”.
Bradley writes that Iago “illustrates in the most perfect combination the two facts concerning evil, which seem to have impressed Shakespeare the most”, the first being that “the fact that perfectly sane people exist in whom fellow-feeling of any kind is so weak that an almost absolute egoism becomes possible to them”, with the second being “that such evil is compatible, and even appears to ally itself easily, with exceptional powers of will and intellect”.The same critic also famously said that “to compare Iago with the Satan of Paradise Lost seems almost absurd, so immensely does Shakespeare’s man exceed Milton’s Fiend in evil”.
Weston Babcock, however, would have readers see Iago as “an human being, shrewdly intelligent, suffering from and striking against a constant fear of social snobbery”.According to Babcock, it is not malice, but fear, that drives Iago. For, “Iago dates his maturity, as he considers it, his ability to understand the world, from the age at which he recognized every remark to be personally pointed. One only who lacks inner assurance and is so constantly on guard against any hint of his inferiority could so confess himself”.
John Draper, on the other hand, postulates that Iago is simply “an opportunist who cleverly grasps occasion” (726),spurred on by “the keenest of professional and personal motives”.Draper argues that Iago “seized occasions rather than made them”. According to his theory, Iago “is the first cause, but events, once under way, pass out of his control”.Following this logic, Draper concludes that Iago “is neither as clever nor as wicked as some would think; and the problem of his character largely resolves itself into the question: was he justified in embarking upon the initial stages of his revenge?
Iago has been described as a “motiveless malignity” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This reading would seem to suggest that Iago, much like Don John in Much Ado About Nothing or Aaron in Titus Andronicus, wreaks havoc on the other characters’ lives for no ulterior purpose.
Léone Teyssandier writes that a possible motive for Iago’s actions is envy towards Desdemona, Cassio and Othello; Iago sees them as more noble, generous and, in the case of Cassio, more handsome than he is.[9]lllll In particular, he sees the death of Cassio as a necessity, saying of him that “He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly”.
Andy Serkis, who in 2002 portrayed Iago at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, wrote in his memoir Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic, that:
There are a million theories to Iago’s motivations, but I believed that Iago was once a good soldier, a great man’s man to have around, a bit of a laugh, who feels betrayed, gets jealous of his friend, wants to mess it up for him, enjoys causing him pain, makes a choice to channel all his creative energy into the destruction of this human being, and becomes completely addicted to the power he wields over him. I didn’t want to play him as initially malevolent. He’s not the Devil. He’s you or me feeling jealous and not being able to control our feelings.
Iago reveals his true nature only in his soliloquies, and in occasional asides. Elsewhere, he is charismatic and friendly, and the advice he offers to both Cassio and Othello is superficially sound; as Iago himself remarks: “And what’s he then, that says I play the villain, when this advice is free I give, and honest…?”
It is this dramatic irony that drives the play.
Source: WIKIPEDIA
