What techniques does Shakespeare use to reveal Iago's villainy?

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What techniques does Shakespeare use to reveal Iago’s villainy?

The play Othello is a stereotypical Shakespearean tragedy and it uses characters that are stereotypical of the views people had during the Jacobean period. Othello is a tragedy because the main characters die at the end f the play, also throughout the play themes of prejudice; deceit and love/hate are introduced. Shakespeare has used other sources other that his imagination for his plays. ‘Othello’ was thought to have been taken from Hecatommithi, a collection of Italian short stories written by Giraldi Cinthio, the story seven contains many of the same names and situations as in Othello.

 

In this essay I will analyze and comment on how Shakespeare uses techniques to reveal Iago’s villainy. I will look at what effects the techniques Shakespeare uses have on the way Iago is presented to the audience.

In act 2 scene 3 ‘Othello’ we can clearly see the way Iago uses his surreptitious mind to persuade Othello that Desdemona is having an affair with Casio. Due to Iago’s manipulation of Othello, Othello starts to doubt Desdemona’s loyalty and becomes under Iago’s control. Iago uses a sly way to get Othello’s attention and get him to believe what he has to say is true, he uses phrases such as “my noble lord” using both a personal pronoun by saying “my” and flattery by calling Othello his “noble lord” which would be taken as a huge compliment.

Othello interestedly says “what dost thou say, Iago?” Iago the produces a question “Did Michael Cassio, when you woo’d my lady know of your love?” which is, in this case, the first question to doubt Othello’s mind. Othello replies with “he did, from first to last, why dost thou ask?” meaning Cassio did know about their love, Othello is a it confused by the question so asks Iago why he asked, Iago then sneakily continues with “but for satisfaction of my thought, no further harm” and this is to keep Othello interested but still in doubt of what’s going on and what’s the point of it all. Iago used techniques of withholding information, this gets Othello curious as to why Iago is so inquisitive, this makes Othello frustrated by Iago’s confusing answers, he demands an answer, this makes the audience feel Othello is not as good character as he seemed and Iago is not as clever as he previously thought.

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Othello is very clever in the way that he tells Iago , “yes, and went between us very oft” here he tries to get information out of Iago about what’s going on because Othello had been incidentally reminded but Iago that Cassio has easy and frequent access to Desdemona so therefore senses that Iago is lying, which causes Iago to repeat his words out of coyness “honest my lord”, Iago is then worried that he had gone too far and saves himself with a brief answer to Othello my lord, for aught I know”. However Othello can’t be fooled ...

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The essay has an okay structure, but the introduction is awful. There is no need to bolt on a paragraph of context about Shakespeare's time of writing, and the paragraph saying "I will" is highly unsophisticated. A good introduction should get right to the point. I presume this has been entered by an American, but it's annoying to see "analyze" or "prioritize" in an English Literature essay!

The analysis in this essay is weak. My major query is that they write the whole essay as if the characters are making their own decisions. I remember this being a major issue with some when moving up to GCSE level, but it's key to refer to Shakespeare's constructions. By talking about Shakespeare's choices of making Iago a villain, you will naturally discuss why he has chosen to do so and the effect on the reader. Without such style, it will always fail to reach the top marks. Quotes are well embedded which was nice to see, and sometimes language is closely analysed. When talking about Iago, I would always focus on imagery, and in particular satanic or poisonous themes. It would've been better if this essay could've used a few more technical terms. I would've liked to have seen Iago's soliloquies explicitly mentioned, as these are key to showing his villainy. Audience response is mentioned four times in this essay, whereas it should be thoroughly explored.

This essay engages adequately to the question, yet tends to retell the plot at times. It is evident from the introduction that this essay isn't the strongest, which isn't the position you want to put the marker in before they've even read the rest! There is a lot of unnecessary bolted context such as "views of Italian men". Yes, if this was woven into why Iago is a villain, that would've been strong. However, it is not and just loses focus.