Re-read 1.3.333-398 In what ways do this dialogue and soilquy develop your understanding of Iago and his role in the play.

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Re-read 1.3.333-398  

In what ways do this dialogue and soilquy develop your understanding of Iago and his role in the play.

Shakespeare’s Iago is a very sophisticated and unpredictable character. He is part vice and is a very deceitful and evil character. We see him as a character who tempts mankind into performing devilish conducts. This is why he is almost certainly known as inherently evil. There is a suggestion that Shakespeare’s Iago is a cold-blooded creature because of motiveless plots, but we are however offered a number of reasons for his plots and plans. Like many Shakespearean villains, he is quick to improvise and he carries out his evil procedures using materials he has at hand.

Iago is known to sharing certain characteristics with Richard III, though he was more violent, Don John in the comedy Much Ado Nothing and Claudius in Hamlet.

Shakespare sought to create mere than simply an embodiment of evil, designed merely as a counterbalance to moral values attributed to Desdemona.

In Act 1.3.333, as the reader and audience, Shakespear has made very clear of how Iago and Roderigo differ in personal quailities. The characters leave, leaving Roderigo and Iago alone, so the Act is framed by these two characters, and much has transpired since the original meeting of these two. Roderigo is in fact further away from Desdemona, but Iago gives him hope, suggesting that affairs may change in Cyprus.  Iago still needs to use Roderigo and he successfully persuades him away from suicide and back to the role of his instrument of evil.           Rodergio is distraught about the relationship between Othello and Desemona; his language is simple and clear, “It cannot be”. This simpilcity of language shows his feelings and his lack of hope and vulnerbility to Iago.

 Although Roderigo may seem a minor character in comparision to Iago, he fulfils a vital funnction in its central action; he illuminates Iago’s character and method. Roderigo’s lack of awareness of the confidence which Iago places in him makes him something of a comic figure, who commands little of our sympathy.

While Roderigo’s reaction to the news of  Othello and Desemona is calm, in control and no hope, we see Iago’s reaction is quite the opposite and tries to manipulate him not to supress him anger but use it in a filthy revengeful way.  His explaination for the falling between Othello and Desemona is that “it is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will”; this is evidence of the lack of respect and belief in love Iago has. Iago reduces everything to the barest physical and material terms. Love is merely "a lust of the blood and a permission of the will;" The noble passion of Othello and Desdemona is no more than a black old man’s lust for a young white girl. He even suspicions that Othello has slept with his wife Emilia. He continues to lay his plan for destroying his archenemy.

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Iago constantly tries to give Roderigo hope that he will have her in the end; “she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice: she must have change, she must.” Iago’s view on love is again made clear; he thinks love will eventually burn out, it is not love Desdemona has for Othello so she will eventually become undesirable to him.

        In Iago’s speech to Roderigo, he constantly makes the remark “put money in thy purse”, this gives a great effect and empahasis. The word “money” is mentioned eleven times when talking to Roderigo. ...

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