Peter Gregory
Often, a play or novel presents a character who cannot be trusted, but whose true nature is eventually revealed. Such a statement is no truer then when talking about the main antagonist of Iago from Shakespeare’s play Othello. In the play Iago tries to manipulate the main protagonist, Othello, into thinking his wife is having an affair with his lieutenant, Cassio, and Iago eventually succeeds all too well. All this is a sinister plot for revenge, hate, and over all evilness against Othello and is a plan that requires no one but Iago to know what he is up to and no one does know until it is too late. Iago is unmasked only after he has convinced Othello to kill Desdemona, Othello’s wife, and was only revealed because of a statement from Emilia, his wife, about Desdemona’s handkerchief which was seen without a doubt what happened when Iago killed Emilia. The letters found on Roderigo later also didn’t help Iago, but as said this all came too late as Desdemona was already dead and later Othello would kill himself in grief. The only reason why I could see Shakespeare writing it in that Iago was revealed in the end was to give the audience a little closer and relief as that at least Iago was going to be punished for this.
Iago’s plan, actions, and motives reflect a very fundamental theme the play presents: absolute evil, to the extent that we can’t fully understand, is out there and Iago represents it. Although, Othello and Desdemona’s love was so strong between