Iago has by far the most soliloquies in Othello, more than the title character, and he uses them slightly differently to Othello or, for example, Macbeth, who both use the soliloquies to describe their feels and passions. They act more like they are talking to themselves than to the audience. However, Iago talks to the audience and brings us in to his world. This is an attempt to bridge the gap between the audience and the characters. He talks about his plans and hints at his motives (he claims to Roderigo that Othello has slept with Emilia, his wife) but, most interestingly of all, he constantly tries to justify his evil actions.
‘And what’s he then that says I play the villain,
When this advice is free I give and honest?’
He brings into question the audience’s core morality. The audience, for our part, seems to lap up his words and enjoy with some sort of sadistic pleasure his extremely talented actions. Iago is one of Shakespeare’s most complex villains.
‘We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly followed…
Heaven is my judge’
Maybe the question we should be asking is not why the audience may enjoy Iago, but why Iago makes the effort to make us enjoy his actions. He craves to control other people’s lives and then see their downfall. He sees himself as the director of a play and every play must have an audience. Parallels could be found in the psychoanalysis of rapists in the present day; they crave power and when they achieve it it makes them feel good about themselves. However, this feeling does not last indefinitely and they must obtain more power on a more frequent basis.
Iago often toys with the audience and the soliloquy on p99 attempts to bring us in on the plot and act as fellow conspirators. We are the only ones who know the full extent of Iago’s plans; even his own wife Emilia does not know how evil Iago is. This gives the audience the feeling that they are special and important to Iago, thus strengthening the bond between Iago and his audience (because, really, in his mind it is ‘his’ audience)
There is no denying that many of Iago’s evil traits can be found to a lesser extent in every one of us. Jealousy, thoughts of revenge and retribution, hate and lustful passion are part of our lives at some stage or other. Maybe the audience sub-consciously is pleased that these feelings, which are marginalized and demonised by society, are present and can be expressed to their full extent. Maybe Iago is fulfilling something that we would love to do but are oppressed from doing by convention?
So, I believe we can safely conclude we do not hate him in the pure sense- we would not like to see him removed from the play. As for the question of whether the audience enjoy watching Iago, I would argue that it is a personal opinion and maybe something do with a particular person’s personality. Iago can be taken into our hearts and we can revel in his evilness. For me, he is the inevitable personification of evil and jealously that we must sit back and observe as he wreaks havoc.
Ben Sellers.
