S.T. Coleridge’s interpretation of Iago’s character, “(Iago shows) the motive hunting of a motiveless malignity” cannot be seen as entirely true as to call Iago motiveless would be false. It could be said has too many motives that lead him to construct ways of bringing about people’s downfalls. He feels betrayed by his wife, and convinces himself that both Othello and Cassio have cuckolded him. He is resentful of Othello’s and Cassio’s successes and his deeply racist nature leads him to resent Othello all the more as can be seen from his racist comments and repetition of “Moor” to describe him. These motives lead him to hate the other characters so much as to gain a sadistic pleasure at their misfortune.
Everybody is slightly egotist, it is (a bad?) part of human nature, each of us is our favourite subject, however, Iago’s sense of egotism is grossly inflamed. He cares about nobody but himself and even his wife, who he should at least have a little love for is treated with sexist disdain. He is cloaked in lies and deceit and all his relationships with people result in his gain, and usually their loss. His acting is so skilful and convincing that even his wife doesn’t truly know him and Othello and Cassio refer to him as “honest Iago”, ironically far from his real character. His self pride and arrogance is apparent in his scorn for the characters around him, shown by his frequent references to animals and his disdain erring obsession for their sexual relationships,
“Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride”
Iago’s love of himself leads him to desire everything for himself, the lack of this leads to great jealousy for the characters around him. He is jealous of Cassio for his rank of lieutenant, jealous of Othello for his success and falsely jealous because he believes of Othello that,
“twixt my sheets
He’s done my office,”
Though there is obviously no truth in this showing his insecurity, the thought of it,
“Doth like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards.” It could be said that there is a further jealousy hinted at in some interpretations of the play, Iago’s jealousy of Desdemona for Othello’s love of her. It could be said that Iago has homosexual tendencies, he has virtually no interest in woman, having been a soldier and spent all his life in the company of men.
Vice is a general character structure for English medieval theatre representing a personified devil, an evil person yet full of wit and designed to develop a relationship of mutual respect with the audience, entering into conspiracy with them. This then can allow a huge build-up of tension using powerful dramatic irony, the audience knows just how clever the Vice character is and his deception that the other characters are taken in for leads them to have a certain awed respect for him. Iago is a classic example of the Vice character; his wit is second to none in the play. There are also certain aspects of the Machiavellian character structure evident in Iago, for example his cynicism of people portrayed by his animal references, which is quite ironic as cynic comes from the ancient Greek for dog-like.
“Iago is chaos” Geoffrey Wilson Knight. This is an important observation that fits right in with the play. Othello says of Desdemona,
“when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again”
The irony is immediately apparent here, Iago’s plan requires Othello to believe he has become a cuckold, thus leading him to hate Desdemona as passionately as he had loved her, and who brung about this change of attitudes? Iago, and chaos has come.
Critics have questioned whether Iago is immoral or amoral ever since Shakespeare wrote the play but it is reasonable to say that he is both. He has an overall lack of morals that is simply another undesirable aspect of his character and seems unable to distinguish between right and wrong in certain situations but he also displays a deliberate disregard for what is good and right. He seems to disregard the suffering he will inevitably cause as a direct result of his words, this is especially noticeable in the soliloquies where he tends to speak his mind. “I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear.” He has less awareness of what is right and wrong than the other characters though this could be because of desensitisation of his sense of morals or it could be Shakespeare’s way of introducing a stereotypical prejudice towards Negroes at the time to a white character.
Iago brings about the downfall of several characters, breaks Brabantio’s heart with words, poisons Othello’s delight, turns Desdemona’s virtue to pitch and still feels not the slightest trace of remorse, instead all he feels is pleasure at others pain. Shakespeare’s managed to turn Cinthio’s “scorned lover” character into an evil, twisted and unfeeling sadist. He is hugely disturbing towards Jacobean audiences of the time for the crooked manipulation and the faults of the human character he personifies. We can all identify certain aspects of his character in varying degrees in out own personalities, hopefully this can lead us to change our ways when we see how wretched this character is, he has an insatiable appetite for suffering and no matter how much he causes, he is still unhappy.
