Iago
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- For other uses, see Iago (disambiguation).
Image:Othelloiagomovie.jpg Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello.
Iago, second in friendship to Othello behind Cassio, spends most of the play attempting to bring about Othello's downfall by leading him to believe his wife, Desdemona, is being unfaithful to him with Cassio, his chief lieutenant. He eventually does destroy Othello's reputation (which leads the Moor to kill himself), but sets the stage to his own doom when his wife Emilia reveals the whole of his plot. At the end of the play Iago is ordered imprisoned by Cassio.
Iago is one of Shakespeare's most sinister villains. Shakespeare contrasts Iago with Othello's nobility and integrity. He has more lines in the play than Othello does, the most that any of Shakespeare's non-title characters have.
Iago 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.
Iago fits into the malcontent character type because of his bitter and cynical view of the world around him.
While the play suggests motives for Iago's hateful scheming, many readers feel that a deeper root remains hidden. Iago cites suspicion that his wife has been unfaithful to him with Othello, or bitterness that Othello passed him up for a big promotion, but many interpretations of the play include the idea that Iago is the devil himself.
Iago has been played in theatrical performances by many famous actors, such as Ian McKellen, Christopher Plummer, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Eccleston, and Kenneth Branagh.
2001's O, which transported the story to a modern-day high school basketball team, recast Iago as Hugo (played by Josh Hartnett), a bitter and resentful teenager who hates Odin (Mekhi Phifer in the Othello role) for his superior abilities at the game, and because he thinks his father, the coach, favors his star player over his own son. As revenge, he leads Odin to believe that his girlfriend Desi (Julia Stiles in the Desdemona role) is cheating on him. As in the original play, his lies and manipulations lead to a tragic ending.
Possible motives for Iago
Iago has been described as a "motiveless malignance" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This reading would seem to suggest that Iago, much like Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, wreaks havoc on the other characters' lives for no real reason; that he is simply a psychopath who derives sadistic enjoyment from the suffering of others.
Possible analysed motives include:
- Failure to be promoted
- Racism
- repressed, self-hating, homosexual feelings for Othello
- Sexual infidelity
- insecurity
- a nihilistic personality
- a supreme intellect unregulated by emotion
A character analysis of Iago
The treatment of Othello and Iago as characters of equal and opposite entities seems a secure touchstone with which to begin a discussion of the arch-Shakespearean villain. "Evil has nowhere else been portrayed with such mastery," writes A.C. Bradley in his essay on Othello. In his first words in Act I, we are invited by Iago to "abhor him." Filled with rage at the promotion of Cassio over himself ("I know my price, I am worth no worse a place"), his proclamation "I hate the Moor" can be contrasted immediately with one of Othello's earliest lines, in which he speaks of his "love" for the "gentle Desdemona": a dichotomy that precipitates the hate theme of the play at the hands of the malignant would-be protagonist.
However, Othello's breadth of emotion and language set him apart from Iago. It is futile attempting to understand one in light of the other; the play is called Othello for the precise reason that it is he who Shakespeare deals with and presents to us. The Tragedy of Iago cannot compare as powerfully with that of the Moor. Therefore it is wiser to analyse Iago in light of his own presentation, independent (to a certain extent, of course) of the text's other characters.
Firstly, Iago is not a normal villain. If this were the case, there would be little attraction (or indeed repulsion) to his character. Iago is not, first and foremost, the wronged husband, slighted underdog and vengeful soldier. He is an outsider, capable of an almost inhuman cruelty, jealousy and envy. What befalls Iago does not impact his character, but resolves it. Secondly, he has clearly defined goals with less definite motives. He resents any form of social privilege that does not extend to him, and holds nothing but contempt for his superiors. See, for example, his retort to Brabantio's "Thou art a villain!": "You are a senator!" (I.i.117–8), or his description of Othello:
The Moor is of a free and open nature/That thinks men honest that but seem to be so/And will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are. (I.iii.381–4)
The susceptible emotions of Othello, Roderigo and Cassio are simply requisites for his delight in influencing the actions and fates of others. E.A.J. Honigmann, in his introduction to the play, quotes Napoleon: "My mistress is power, but it is as an artist that I love power. I love it as a musician loves his violin." The central characters of the play each become Iago's violins, fulfilling his role as both artist and matador. His sense of humour, too, acts as another medium for inflicting pain on others; he hides his sadism behind a mask of humour which takes pride in the misery of its victims.
Like many of Shakespeare's villains, such as Richard III or Aaron the Moor, Iago is a silver-tongued charmer who manipulates his victims like pawns. Rather than directly challenge those who oppose him, he leads them to believe that he is their only friend, while secretly instigating their ruin. This game feeds his immense ego, satisfying his desire for an almost God-like power; the Machiavellian image of The Prince or Nietzsche's übermensch is an attractive and not entirely irrelevant analogy to observe.
Iago, however, does not exemplify completely the "Elizabethan idea of a disciple of Machiavelli." His existentialism does not expunge completely any reference to religion or spirituality in his language, and he does indeed make reference to religion a number of times. Iago is, by nature, a liar. We as an audience are treated to his soliloquies and invited to discover his true motives, but can also be taken in by his deceptions. For example, Iago claims that Cassio is a great arithmetician, who "never set a squadron in the field/Nor the devision of a battle knows/More than a spinster" (I.i.22–4). However, later in the play Desdemona claims that Cassio has seen service with Othello, and "shared dangers" with him (III.iv.85). It is far more unlikely that Desdemona would lie about Cassio's background, so Iago may simply be embellishing Cassio's actual lack of experience to flesh out his reasons for despising Othello. At the end of the play, Othello sees no reason for Iago's hatred. With this in mind, it is more likely that Iago's main reason for hating the Moor is his claim that "'twixt my sheets/He's done my office" (I.iii.369–70).
Although Iago may not mention his belief in a higher power, nowhere does he openly decry the existence of such a being. His absolute solipsism, however, clearly guides him more so than any faith does. In his belief, it is entirely rational to act with one's own interests at heart, and any form of conscience or consideration for other human beings outside the field of one's own desires is absurd. Hence we come across such lines as "Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners" (I.iii.313–4) or "I never found a man that knew how to love himself" (I.iii.308).
Iago goes on to claim he would "change [his] humanity with a baboon" (I.iii.310). This is symptomatic of Iago's sustained attempt within the play to become the product of his own egoism: he feels the need to vocalise how base and amoral he is purely because he is unable to step wholly outside the world of morality. In essence, Iago is not entirely self-centred or wanting in humanity and compassion, but he tries to be.
"Goodness" in other people, then, is something anathema to Iago. The concept of risking one's life for the woman one loves, or one's country, is ridiculous to him, and it is the burning, hateful passion Iago feels for those who have proven themselves in the field which leads him to hatch his "engender'd" plot. He envies others' achievements, but his malevolence is inspired mainly by his colossal pride and, in turn, his pride stems from his immense ego. The moment most dangerous to a man like Iago comes when his overwhelming need to feel superior is met with an affront: his obsession is reinforced by bitterness, and he does everything in his power to satisfy his own ego by subjecting to his will those who damage it.
The notion of sex is also important in Othello. Although it is not a defining trait of Iago, his sexuality has given rise to discussion, as some critics believe Iago hates Othello because he feels an unreciprocated desire for him. It can easily be assumed that he has little experience with women, as he has no effect on either Desdemona or his wife. He sees women as sex objects, nothing more. Iago's marriage is seen as abnormal in relation to others in the play, and it seems Emilia accepts that her husband is "wayward," and unwilling to be as affectionate towards her as he seems to be towards others. Iago draws a voyeuristic satisfaction from other people's sex lives: he regularly depicts these scenes throughout Othello, for example in the opening scene with Brabantio where he conjures up images of "the beast with two backs," and jokes that "an old black ram is tupping your white ewe." He also makes repeated references to the marital bed of Othello and Desdemona: "happiness to their sheets!" The most ostensibly homosexual content of the play can be observed in the following passage, shortly after the line where Iago tells Othello: "I lay with Cassio lately":
And then, sir, he would gripe and wring my hand, Cry, 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me hard then laid his leg Over my thigh, and sighed, and kissed... (III.iii.421–2,425–6)
However, this account of a homosexual experience does not fit with the continuity of events in the play, as the encounter between Iago and Cassio supposedly takes place on the way to Cyprus, but Iago and Cassio arrive on different ships, making any such encounter one of Iago's many fabrications.
In the end, however, Iago's sexuality and the importance of sex in his motives is a debate best left to other forums, suffice to register here that the presence of sexual jealousy towards Othello may be a factor in determining Iago's motives.
In the end, it is Iago's failure to grasp the more basic concepts of love, trust, loyalty and spirituality which leads to his downfall. He assumes Emilia will keep quiet because she is bound to him in marriage, yet underestimates her very human ability to feel compassion for Othello and Desdemona.
One of Iago's most remarkable traits is his immense stoicism and self-control, demonstrated in his lengthy explanation to Roderigo that "If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions." (I.iii.319–321). Iago is able to control himself even under immense stress or even, in the end, pain and torment.
The diabolical figure, while not quite enjoying the position to lay hold of the "last laugh," certainly does not lose his image as a "demi-devil" upon the play's end. Iago's last line is "From this time forth I never will speak word" (V.ii.301), and the majestic, entirely malignant silence in which he is taken from the stage leaves the audience with the more than potent impression that, as the critic Swinburne points out, "you cannot believe for a moment that the pain of torture will open his lips."de:Iago es:Yago