Iago A summary

Shares his philosophy via his soliloquies and speeches to Roderigo Has a cynical view of relationships: victim, used, abused/ victimiser, user, abuser. Sees servants as beasts of burden: Wears out his time much like his mater’s ass,/For nought but provender, and when he’s old cashiered. Everything is subject to will: Our bodies are our gardens, to which/ Our wills are gardeners. Love is merely a lust of the blood/ and a permission of the will.

His actions Continues to serve Othello so he can get revenge: I follow him to serve my turn upon him. He is a good judge of character, is perceptive, he can see others’ weaknesses that he can manipulate. He holds me well/ The better shall my purpose work on him. The Moor is of free and open nature/ That thinks men honest but that seems to be so, ?And will as tenderly be led by them/ As asses are. Plays on the real weaknesses and vulnerabilities of his victims.

By what he says about others Contemptuous way of speaking; calls most other characters ‘fools’: Thus credulous fools are caught; sick fool Roderigo. Admits to his negativity: I am nothing if not critical. Says his wife has been unfaithful without evidence: For that I do suspect the lusty Moor hath leapt into my seat. Fears and loathes women (Misogynist)

By the kind of language he uses Curses and exclamations: Pish, ‘sblood, zounds Sees relationships as predatory: gyve, ensnare, enfetter, enmesh His cynical and bestial view of love, sexuality and women (animal imagery): ass, claws, flies, ram, jennet, guinea-hen, baboon, wild cat, snipe, goats, monkeys, monster, wolves. Calls Othello a ‘devil’ – ironic as his character is truly demonic in nature.

By his use of disinformation and dissimulation (form of deception where one hides the truth) Offers hypocritical sympathy for the hurt he has engineered, as when he offers Cassio help; draws attention to his own generosity in offering help. Says one thing about reputation to Cassio (II,iii) and the opposite to Othello (III,iii) Takes innocent actions and puts on them a gloss of deceit and treachery.

Iago Is destructively cynical, intellectual, detached – an limited, mean and evil. Reduces everything to his own terms. Has a corrupting view of life, his victims are drawn into this corrupt world view and tainted by it. Makes use of other people’s virtues as well as their vices to catch them. Rationalises others’ weaknesses as conscious and deliberate. He is impressed by his own wickedness; at the end of the first act he calls it a ‘monstrous birth’ and invokes Hell to assist it. Presents us with a consistently ironic perspective of the action.