Is Iago The Perfect Villain?

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Othello Essay

'Is Iago the perfect villain?'

Few Shakespearian villains radiate evilness and jealously quite as much as Iago, the unbeknown nemesis of the play's title character, Othello. In other plays written by the bard of Avon the villains can come across as one-dimensional- weak, personified by a flaw in their genetic make-up or unattainable ambition yet Iago is a far more complex and compelling character. True, he has the power to both betray and murder those he once worked alongside, but Iago isn't the complete cold-blooded murderer in the same sense of Macbeth or King Claudius from Hamlet. True, he meticulously plans the death of Cassio but he plans it to be by hands of Rodrigo, his puppet. In the end opportunity presents itself to Iago and he seizes the moment to stab Cassio in the back but the blow fails to kill him. Iago also reveals a moral conscience through his three soliloquy's which I will explore in more detail later. In short Iago is like no other of Shakespeare's villains which makes him an utterly compelling and absorbing character. And like the other characters in the play, Iago delights in absorbing us, the viewer...