Othello Essay

William Shakespeargons Othello is essenti altogethery a play about human passions, which, when unleashed, can be blind and destructive. Iago can be considered the closely important office in the text, as it is him who manages to manipulate all the characters in the play by making use of their let weaknesses, so as to instal them serve his profess purpose of penalize. Iagos motivations are multiple. He repeatedly states his hate for the Moor, and sets to destroy him and the some other characters in the play.To achieve this, Iago makes use of the passions that he intuitively perceives as very prominent in the other characters he uses Othellos get it on for Desdemona and manages to drive him to believe she is unfaithful, he uses Desdemonas generosity to determine her to speak to Othello in behalf of Cassio and so on. Thus, love and hate are the main human passions, that, from both of these, a third passion is often born green-eyed monster. Iago triggers Othellos jealousy, and as he does so, he is motivated by his own jealousy. In Othello, Shakespeare shows how jealousy drives men to acts normally unconscionable.Jealousy motivates Iago to lie, cheat and steal his way to the chief lieutenants touch. Without jealousy, men would be content in their environments and no conniving would occur. Jealousy is the strongest and the most powerful emotion in man. The most important feature of Iago is his changeless dissembling and his distortion of reality. This is the tool that he uses to deceive the others and to make them comply to his plan. Iagos permanent dissembling is very important for understanding the motivations behind his acts. steady from the origin scene of Act I, Iago declares that he acts so as to reach his own goals, and he is non devoted to any other person or sentiment than to himself. Thus, as Iago emphasizes, he only dissembles that he follows Othello as a servant, but in fact, only follows himself and is only faithful to his own motivations Others there are/ Who, trimmd in forms and visages of duty,/ Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,/ And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,/Do well thrive by them and when they occupy lined/ their coats/ Do themselves homage these fellows have some soul/And such a one do I profess myself.For, sir,/ It is as sure as you are Roderigo,/Were I the Moor, I would non be Iago/In following him, I follow but myself (I. i. 49-59) Iago is motivated by his own designs and plans to destroy the Moor. whatsoever the motivations that lie behind his hate for Othello, Iago makes it clear that he is only faithful to himself, and disregards any other feelings or principles that might stand in the way. At first sight, his around diabolic plans seem to make of Iago a very cold and calculated character, since he manages to dissemble everything and to deceive everyone, while hiding his dead on target personality and motivations.Iago is thusly Machiavellic in pursuing his purposes , and he states this himself, when he says that he give wear his heart upon his sleeve- a phrase that has a double meaning firstly, he implies that he will play the others as he pleases, always taking the advantages as in a game of cards, and therefore that he will do this without any feeling or heart just I will wear my heart upon my sleeve/ For daws to peck at I am not what I am. (I. i. 65-66)However, as it shall be seen, Iago can not be considered as a mere cold blooded and Machiavellic character that acts only to reach his own abstract goals. Although his first motivation is to serve his own purposes and ensure his own comfort and pleasure, Shakespeare actually lets the glance everywhereer see that Iago is motivated by his own passions, and most of all by jealousy, in his actions. The first hint in the play that corroborates this assumption is the fact that Iagos manipulation of the other characters seems to spring from his own intimacy of the passions that impulse them.I agos is jealous of everyone else, and thus knows this feeling better that everyone and is able to use his knowledge to drive Othello to mad jealousy. He manipulates all the other characters as well, by using their own passions and a subtle distortion of truth he uses Desdemonas good heart to make her plead for Cassio in take care of Othello, and thus drives her to perdition through her own actions, then he uses Cassios admiration for Desdemona and his desire to get his position back as a lieutenant to make him ask Desdemona for help, and so on.Even to achieve smaller purposes he always makes sure that the other characters are driven by some passion, so as to play them as he likes (as when he calls Barbantio, Desdemonas father, and makes Roderigo tell him about his daughters corruption by Othello, and thus drives him into a rage). As such, Iago is a true Janus figure, a double faced character who dissimulates his own jealousy and passions to manipulate the others feelings Iago is li ke Janus, the two-faced god by whom he swears (By Janus, I think no 1. 2. 32), in that he speaks with a double tongue.He alters his version of the truth to suit the occasion. To Roderigo he presents a Desdemona who is sexually susceptible, while to Cassio he offers a jaundiced view of good name no longer the jewel of the soul that he praises to Othello (3. 3. 156) when he asserts that news report is an wild and most false imposition (2. 3. 267-68). Although Iago does tell a few direct lies, such as the presumably fabricated dream of Cassio, his speciality is to a greater extent often false interpretations of factual data or the manipulation of empirical data to his advantage. (Hall, 73)Some of Iagos main motivations for his plans can be plainly read in his own statements and soliloquies in the text. Thus, the first motivation that comes into sight even at the beginning of the play is his jealousy of Cassios promotion as Othellos lieutenant. Iagos rancor drives him to call Cassio an incompetent lieutenant and to state that the function should have been his. He thus evinces the first sign of his over powering jealousy- he desires another(prenominal) mans position and cannot stand to feel left aside As masterly as he mere prattle, without practice/ Is all his soldiership.But he, sir, had the election/ And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof/ At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds/ Christian and heathen must be be-leed and calmd/ By debitor and creditor this counter-caster,/ He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,/ And IGod bless the mark his Moorships ancient. (I. i. 25-32) The second important motivation to determine Iagos actions is again jealously. This time, it is jealousy of Othello, as he thinks that the latter has engaged in an adulterous relationship with his own wife, Emilia.The statement appears twice in the play, and Iago emphasizes that his revenge will be the wife for wife, that is, he will make Othello pay with Desdemona wife for taking his own wife Emilia I hate the Moor, / And it is persuasion abroad that twixt my sheets / Hes done my office. (I. iii. 386-88) I do wary the lustfulnessy Moor/ Hath leapd into my seat the thought whereof /Doth (like a poisonous mineral) gnaw my inward /And nothing can or shall content my soul /Till I am evened with him, wife for wife. (II. i. 295-99)The jealousy that Iago feels in both cases, for Cassios promotion over him and for Othellos affair with Desdemona is un compriseed as such. Emilia herself declines later in the play having had any kind of adventure with Othello. Therefore, it becomes obvious that these reasons that Iago takes up to pursue his revenge are more or less fabricated. He is indeed jealous both of Cassio and Othello, but his jealousy springs from an even deeper fountain than what that to which he admits he is in fact eaten by envy for all the other character that is more successful than him or has more advantages than he does.Iagos main motivation for his actions arises from an almost chronic jealousy of everyone and everything that main constitute a threat to his own ego Audiences accept the sincerity of his explosive I hate the Moor (1. 3. 377), his rancor at existence passed over for promotion to lieutenant despite his being senior to Cassio (1. 1. 32-33), and his fear of being cuckolded (1. 3. , 378-79 2. 1. 307).At the same time, they probably intuit other motives that drive his campaign of hatred an underlying racial animosity toward Othello and bitterness at class privilege, a pervasive envy of anyone who is more successful than he is, and a need to assert himself through exercising power over the people who threaten his ego. (Hall, 74) The love for his own self and his egocentrism are continual elements in Iagos terminology. This does not mean merely that he tries to preserve himself from harm and injury or that he always pursues his interests and ambitions. As already seen, Iago is indeed a character that always render s his own interest.This can be easily inferred from the fact that he seems to act, as he himself states, to protect what is of his own right his wife, and the position of lieutenant that, as he implies, should be rightfully his. However, Iago acts out of jealousy and a desire to possess everything that others possess, and not to protect his property. His idea is that the love for oneself should always come first, and annihilate any other principles, and this is one of the crucial reasons for his villainous actions and since I could distinguish/ betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man/ that knew how to love himself.Ere I would say, I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, /I would change my humanity with a baboon. Since Iagos love for himself drives him to jealousy of everyone else, he has no moral principles of his own. He mocks at love, virtue and honesty, reputation, and believes that the only true motivation for action should be that of pursuing ones strict interests. In his conversation with Cassio, Iago advocates that reputation does not count for anything, and that a bodily injury would have been much more serious a wound As I am an honest man, I thought you had received/ some bodily wound there is more sense in that that/ in reputation.Reputation is an idle and most false/ imposition oft got without merit, and lost without/ deserving you have lost no reputation at all,/ unless you repute yourself such a loser. (II. iii. 270-275) non only does Iago despise any moral principle or value, but he is jealous of them when he sees that the others have them. Another motivation for his actions is thus the jealousy that he feels at the beauty he sees in the others lives. This is his case against Cassio who has a daily beauty in his life that makes Iago ugly if Cassio do remain,/ He hath a daily beauty in his life/ That makes me ugly and, besides, the Moor May unfold me to him there stand I in much peril/ No, he must die. But so I hear him coming. (V. i. 18-22) Thus, most of Iagos motivations are determined by jealousy and envy. His jealousy is not limited to Othellos taking of his wife or to Cassios taking of his position as a lieutenant, as he would have us believe. He is jealous of all the things or persons that are good or beautiful. As such, Iago has been many times seen as the personification of evil.He is almost a devil, who tempts the passions and weaknesses of other people, a true artist of evil. As Joan Lord Hall affirms, Iago seems at time to act as the principle of pure evil that does not need motives Whereas the original unrighteousness sporting his self-proclaimed, ebullient villainy does not need motives, Iago is not wholly convincing when he provides them. (Hall, 78) Iago himself, after having devised his diabolic plan, proclaims himself the author of the evil that shall follow I havet. It is engenderd. Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the worlds light. (I. iii. 424-425)Although i t is clear that Iago is evil, it is still obvious that he has his reasons for being evil, and that these are almost pathologic. He hates everyone else and is jealous of everything, and these are the main things that make him be evil. As Hall observes, Iago is indeed a passionate character, and he is animate by a pathological form of jealousy His intrigues thus serve to shore up the terrible emptiness of his inner abyss. The actor of Iago, though, may take to portray him as a smoldering volcano of aggression and pathological jealousy rather than as an emotionally dead human being. (Hall, 79)Thus, Iago denigrates both love and virtue in his conversation with Roderigo, trying to persuade him that Desdemona could be his in spite of her seeming love for Othello and of Othellos love for her. Love is but a sect or scion, something that arises in the senses and that can be controlled with the help of the will. This crude and naturalistic definition of love that Iago gives, is certainly r ooted into his own jealousy at not being able to partake of this feeling or of any other but we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal/ stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that/ you call love to be a sect or scion. (I. iii. 354-356) Iago cannot feel anything else except his own jealousy. This is why he imitates the feelings of Othello, and states that one of his reasons for his acts is his own lust for Desdemona. The position is however obviously false, as he only feels jealous of Othello and Desdemona love Now, I do love her too/ Not out of inviolate lust, though peradventure/ I stand accountant for as great a sin,But partly led to diet my revenge,/ For that I do suspect the lusty Moor/ Hath leapd into my seat the thought whereof/ Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards ( II. i. 312- 319) As Hall proposes, the ultimate reasons for Iagos behavior can be rooted in his acute jealousy, which obviously is almost paranoid. He does not feel jealousy for hi s wife as such, but for every man that might be happy with a woman If we find in Iagos soliloquies interior development rather than casual motive-hunting, then the character is suffering from acute jealousy and sexual paranoia.He appears to distrust his wife intensely. Resentful of Cassios attentions to Emilia at the harbor, he later wonders if Cassio has usurped his nightcap (his place in bed). In his very first soliloquy, he broods on the rumor that Emilia has slept with Othello. (Hall, 79) The most interesting part in the play for this point is Iagos conversation with Othello, and his advice to the latter against jealousy. Thus, Iago induces Othellos jealousy by denigrating jealousy in front of him in such a way that it becomes obvious that he speaks from personal experience, and that he knows the feeling all too well.Thus, Iago appears as a character who acts out of extreme jealousy, while he manages to target the jealousy of Othello and make him be the one that actually perform s the evil O, beware, my lord, of jealousy/ It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/ The meat it feeds on that cuckold lives in bliss/ Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger/ But, O, what damned minutes tells he oer/ Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves (III. iii. 188-193) Iagos ultimate silence at the end of the play helps the conclusion.He has been trying to manipulate everyone through his speech and lying and to reach his goals, but at the end he is silenced by Desdemonas last speech of love. His jealousy is thus smothered by the power of true love Thus defeated a second time, what further silence can Iago seek to impose, except upon himself? His characteristic movement, from awareness of inadequacy to anger to denial, here reaches its logical conclusion, in a denial so complete that it blocks access even to a language formed from pain or anger. (Zender, 328)