Discuss the Character and Motives of Iago - Is the Character a Logical and Self-Consistent One in Its Developments?
- Submitted by: mactire
- Views: 349
- Category: English: Shakespeare
- Date Submitted: 10/06/2014 05:50 AM
- Pages: 4
- Report this Essay
Question: Discuss the character and motives of Iago - is the character a logical and self-consistent one in its developments?
Answer: Iago is the perfect villain. He neither respects moral beauty as seen in Desdemona, nor the grand nobleness of the mighty-souled Othello. All things pure and noble in their nature are looked upon as far beneath his "learned spirit." As Mr. Hudson says, Iago is "severely introversive," and is only satisfied by dipping what is good into his own vileness and bringing it forth reeking in the filth of his own evil nature. The purest of all sentiments is, in his mind, a mere "lust of the blood and a permission of the will." It is utterly foreign to his nature; indeed, we cannot even conceive of lago's loving anything. As in Macbeth, we may, perhaps, regard the "Weird Sisters" as the personification of the evil existing in Macbeth's mind, so lago may be regarded as the personification of all evil, the superlative degree of evil, of which the Witches are merely the positive.
To lago and in an intensified sense, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." The very quintessence of his nature is the consummate power which he possesses of reversing the order of good and evil so as to make the good appear the evil; as when he turns Desdemona's generous solicitations in behalf of Cassio into solicitations for her own destruction, as it finally proves to be; and the evil into good as, i.e., in his own mind when, after urging Cassio to entreat readmission through Desdemona, he says:
"And what's he, then, that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking, and, indeed, the course
To win the Moor again."
With the other characters of the play his villainous intellect sports and trifles at will. Roderigo is the instrument with which he works his diabolic plan. In the reunion scene (II. i. 3), where the happiness of husband and wife seems almost too exquisite, we find lago glorying and exulting in the sad...
Answer: Iago is the perfect villain. He neither respects moral beauty as seen in Desdemona, nor the grand nobleness of the mighty-souled Othello. All things pure and noble in their nature are looked upon as far beneath his "learned spirit." As Mr. Hudson says, Iago is "severely introversive," and is only satisfied by dipping what is good into his own vileness and bringing it forth reeking in the filth of his own evil nature. The purest of all sentiments is, in his mind, a mere "lust of the blood and a permission of the will." It is utterly foreign to his nature; indeed, we cannot even conceive of lago's loving anything. As in Macbeth, we may, perhaps, regard the "Weird Sisters" as the personification of the evil existing in Macbeth's mind, so lago may be regarded as the personification of all evil, the superlative degree of evil, of which the Witches are merely the positive.
To lago and in an intensified sense, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." The very quintessence of his nature is the consummate power which he possesses of reversing the order of good and evil so as to make the good appear the evil; as when he turns Desdemona's generous solicitations in behalf of Cassio into solicitations for her own destruction, as it finally proves to be; and the evil into good as, i.e., in his own mind when, after urging Cassio to entreat readmission through Desdemona, he says:
"And what's he, then, that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking, and, indeed, the course
To win the Moor again."
With the other characters of the play his villainous intellect sports and trifles at will. Roderigo is the instrument with which he works his diabolic plan. In the reunion scene (II. i. 3), where the happiness of husband and wife seems almost too exquisite, we find lago glorying and exulting in the sad...