Iago turns Othello from a ‘noble moor’ into a raging, jealous
husband. How does he achieve this?
Iago brings about this change in Othello by building up trust, provoking him with imagery and lowering his self-esteem. Iago is a compulsive liar and is extremely convincing in speech. He uses his tone of voice and facial expressions to appear believable and carefully chooses his words to be able to manipulate each and every character in their own different ways depending on each personality. He is a master orator and uses this to his advantage to sail through the situation.
Firstly, to be able to talk to, let alone convince, Othello about Desdemona having an affair takes a lot of friendship and trust. For this to happen, Iago has planned out every step; the more trust, the more rage. He gradually becomes more and more dominant over Othello by building up trust. Every so often, Iago, ironically, states the obvious, through Othello’s eyes. “Honest my lord?” This small sentence is seen as an attribute of Iago’s duplicitous personality. He tries questioning himself as not being honest but he knows that it will lead into a deep argument with Othello saying that he is honest and that he is trusted with all his heart. This reassures Iago and stimulates him to keep on going with the plan. Another example of Iago preserving his own innocence is by saying, “I think Cassio’s an honest man”. The face that he is thinking positively about others and that he is complimenting Cassio, he purposely wants this to lead to Othello into thinking that, he, is naive and that he is moral. Iago also says, “Ha! I like not that.,” which triggers a back and forth repartee between Iago and Othello that is like a dance: Iago drops a hint or uses a tone suggesting a relationship between Desdemona and Cassio, Othello asks what he means by the comment, Iago then demurs, only for Othello to demand more information, seemingly dragging it out of Iago while all the while it is Iago leading this dance. Iago’s skills at manipulation result in tremendous irony, for we the audience know what Iago is up to, but Othello seems like a dupe in not understanding what seems to us obvious manipulation.
