Iago is a character that is a fallen angel that needs help, but deep down inside is an ambitious, jealous little boy who doesn’t want anyone to steal his toys and will do anything to prevent it from happening. In other words he doesn’t want anyone to take his lieutenant place and will get revenge to get what is rightfully his.
However Iago is not the only evil manipulator in Shakespeare’s plays but another well known character is also on the same wavelength as Iago.
Lady Macbeth; named as the ‘fourth witch’ in Macbeth is the most evillest character ever constructed in Shakespeare’s plays.
Iago and Lady Macbeth have many similarities in each other’s characteristics; Iago uses peoples’ weaknesses to his advantage no matter what the consequence leads to. Lady Macbeth knows that her husband Macbeth is not a killer and that he has his morals and decides to disband this from her mind and uses manipulative talk to change that thought in his mind. She persuades him that it is morally right to murder his King Duncan if it makes him King and her Queen, which pays off in the end.
Both characters have no conscience or morality over what is right or wrong, they are too trapped in their own little world of ambition, which we all know is hard to get out of. That is also another key feature and theme for both characters; ambition and jealousy take control over their morality and so have no sense what is really going on around them or what consequences of their actions have lead to.
If I were asked to describe Iago using words or phrases, I would say that my list would be longer than a hundred words. There is no way you can give the character Iago one word or phrase to describe his personality its just impossible.
Aspects of Iago’s personality composed most of the themes in the play. Not only is Iago ambitious and jealous but also he creates other themes in the play such as: appearance and reality, marriage, trust and not forgetting love.
Aspects’ of his personality gave me the perspective that he is a traitor, a thief, a hypnotist that uses words to control a person’s actions and mind.
He uses these features to his advantage to make people think he is ‘Honest, honest Iago.’ The other characters never find out his secretive manipulations and so he gets away with anything. Only the audience know how deceitful he really is and what he plans to do next which is revealed in his soliloquies especially in Act I.III:
“…He’s done my office. I know not if’t be true
Yet I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well:
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio’s a proper man: let me see now;
To get his place and plume up my will
In double knavery. How? How? Let’s see.
After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear
That he is too familiar with his wife…” lines 370-378 and so on
We can see from this part of the soliloquy that he definitely has some psychotic problems. He knows that even if it isn’t true that Othello had an affair with his wife, it is even more the benefit to him and his plan that he should believe it. This would give Iago another reason to ruin Othello.
