Close reading of Iagos soliloquy, 1.3

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Drummond

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English 10 Period 3

March 14, 2010

Dr. Drummond

                                Close reading of Iago’s soliloquy, 1.3

This soliloquy brings Act One of Othello to a rousing and ominous close.  The whole first Act we have been made aware of  Iago’s feelings of animosity towards “the Moor” (Shakespeare l.368) but it is here where we finally see, unmasked,  his utter disgust for Othello, and Iago’s need to gain revenge.  Shakespeare’s language – its sounds, images and diction – works to impress on the audience various elements of Iago’s state of mind, not least his feelings of hatred and an insight into the mind of evil.  

        Shakespeare works particularly with at least two kinds of sound in this piece.  First, he chooses words which sound particularly harsh and spiteful in order to express his hatred towards  Othello.  Take, for example, the utterance “I hate the Moor” (368).  Hatred is expressed in the blunt simplicity of the utterance – four frank monosyllables.  And it is there, obviously, in the strong word “hate,” whose “a” can be elongated (“haaaaaate”), even to outrageous proportions as in Sir Ian McKellern’s portrayal (Othello).   Shakespeare expresses Iago’s general nastiness through sounds, too; for example, see (or listen to) the alliterative spikiness of “snipe” and “sport,” as well as “profane” and “profit” (Shakespeare ll. 366-368).  Sound, specifically the phrasing of the passage, also gives the audience a sense of the movement of Iago’s argument.  Initially, Iago is angry, but hesitant: Why do I feel this way?  What shall I do?  Such hesitancy is expressed through the many caesurae in the first section of the speech, such as “Cassio’s a proper man; let me see now;” (374) and of course “How? How? Let’s see ” (376).  All these stops make us feel Iago thinking through the problem, stopping and starting along the way.  By the end of the speech, through rhyme and (finally) a fluid, non-broken line, Iago has his plan worked out: “Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light” (385-6).  

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        As an argument-laden passage, Shakespeare’s words do not contain many images, but those that are here are powerful in their expression of ideas.  Roderigo, for example, is referred to as “a snipe” (367), which as Edward Pechter explains in the accompanying footnote, is a “long-billed bird, used as a type of worthlessness.”  Roderigo is a little bird, a nothing, and perhaps the long bill connotes a kind of getting involved in business in which he is out of his depth.  Another small image is that of Emilia’s possible affair – which allegedly occurred “’twixt my sheets” – a striking sense ...

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