How does Shakespeare present Iago as a tragic villain in Act 1?

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Chad Walker

January 15, 2011

How does Shakespeare present Iago as a tragic villain in Act 1?

Shakespeare’s Iago is the antagonist of Othello but what makes him tragic is an enigma as he is reticent and seems motiveless. However, Shakespeare prints three possible motives into the play that present him as tragic.

Iago is a Machiavellian villain as was Macbeth in Macbeth, written two years after Othello, and A.C. Bradley notes how ‘Italian villainy was prevalent in Shakespeare’s time’. Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher and political adviser. One of his most famous works is The Prince that outlines how a monarch should gain control by deceiving his opponent as an ally. Iago says he will follow Othello only ‘to serve my turn upon him’ in that he may achieve his revenge. He is also a character built on amorality. A.C. Bradley says that he is a ‘psychological impossibility’ and ‘a product of imperfect observation’ but if he were to be perceived as amoral then his behaviour and scheming may be explained due to him being psychotic – there was little knowledge of psychotic behaviour in the 16th century and insanity was diagnosed by religious leaders as being influenced by the devil which Iago is realized to be in Act five, scene two by the other characters:

        ‘I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable.

        If that you be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.’

        

        ‘I bleed, sir; but not killed.’

The feet signify the devils hooves and the mere wound Othello deals Iago acts as evidence that Iago is the devil. The word ‘fable’ also recognises the story that Iago has conjured up that has hid his true identity.

The first motive is that he wants revenge on Othello and Cassio for preventing his promotion as he is ‘worth no worse a place’ – the first indication that he sees himself as above others. He is snide about how Cassio is an ‘arithmetician’ that ‘never set a squadron in the field’, which illustrates how better equipped he is for the position and how Cassio is:

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        ‘A fellow almost damned in a fair wife.’

The word ‘damned’ indicates how malevolent an act he sees making a man into a cuckold which may insinuate a tragic past.

Secondly, Iago’s villainy may sprout from racial prejudice, as it was unusual to have a black hero in Shakespeare’s time. When shouting at Brabantio’s window he distinguishes between Desdemona and Othello’s colour and denotes how primitive he finds their sexual relationship using animal imagery:
        ‘an old black ram

        Is tupping your white ewe.’

In his soliloquy at the end of act one, scene three, he accuses Desdemona of ...

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