The immense and
hadean world of literary villains is rife with irresistible personalities full
of complexities and unanswered questions; however, there is no villain that has
so captured the imagination of the world as Iago. Iago shows himself to be a
heavily nuanced Machiavellian protégée whose schemes so are encompassing that
even the audience falls victim to his wit and guile and whose motivations are
so cast in shadow so as to only further damn his nature. However, possibly the
most compelling aspect of this luridly deceitful man is just how he causes all
that he does, how he causes the death of four people, the wounding of three
others, the complete destruction of a man’s soul, and his own descent into
madness. One might think that to engineer such a disturbing and varied set of
results there would need to be a multidimensional and equally varied scheme;
however this is not the case. Iago masterfully engages a single human emotion
to bring about all of his ends, but he is only able to do so because of the
raging agony of which that same emotion has caused within himself. Like drawing
water from a poisoned well, Iago’s uses his own caustic jealousy to envenom
nearly every character in the play; consequently, “Othello” and Iago
specifically is an exploration of the corrosive nature of jealousy at the self,
interpersonal, and communal levels which reveal Iago to not only symbolize
jealousy but rather to embody it, prompting implications for an abstractive
reading of the play. In order to properly engage these arenas, it is best to
begin with the outmost and move towards the personal in much the same way one
might trace the epidemiology of a disease.
The first analysis
of jealousy working through and in Iago on the communal level comes in his
exchange with Barbantio. At first glance this interaction may not seem to be
any different than any of Iago’s exchanges, but when analyzed carefully it
becomes obvious that Iago’s ploys go beyond that of a single person against
another person but rather of a community against an individual. In act I, scene
I, lines 108 – 110 Iago says “you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll
have coursers for cousins and jennets for germans” taking the insinuation to a
level beyond the immediate family and into a larger perspectives. Again then in
the same scene only a few lines down in line 115 in response to being called a
villain Iago throws Barbantio’s attention back to his place in society saying
“You are a senator.” In each of these cases Iago is crafting Barbantio’s fury
not in relation to the moor’s association to his daughter but in the context of
a community in which he will be seen in a relation to a moor and the jealousy
that is engaged by Iago in Barbantio of Othello’s having robbed him of his
rightful place in society, a place that his peers will occupy without his
company. This theme is further carried
through in act I, scene III, where it is settled in front of gubernatorial
body, a prefecture of community. Iago is most silent during this scene, which
if one accepts him to be a symbol of jealous is a demonstration of the
omnipresent but hidden jealous present within society and communities. In the
next arena of jealous, it is obvious to see Iago playing a more active role.
The most familiar
theater of jealousy is interpersonally. This is also the most evident
throughout the play, being most obvious and fully developed in Iago’s
interaction with Othello, but also taking place with Iago’s interactions with
Cassio, Rodrigo, and Emilia. Prime examples of Iago functioning as the
interpersonal symbol and agent of jealous occur in act III, scene III, lines 93
when Iago prompts “Did Michael Cassio, when you wooed my lady, know of your
love?”, again in line 208 of the same scene recalling Desdemona’s initial
deceit of her father, and in such prevalence throughout nearly every seen that
it would be tiresome to note them all, rather it is better to note the
conditions of each. In every instance of these interpersonal encounters with
Iago, he always is pitting the gains or supposed gains of one against the
reciprocal loss of another. In the case of Othello it becomes less about the
loss of Desdemona as it does about her being taken by another man, the same is
true for Iago, even Emilia is jealous of losing Iago’s attention and it being
displaced elsewhere despite her knowing where or why. In this way Iago embodies
jealous as a sort of universal scale to which all the characters are bound and
by which the weigh their own value. This leads inevitably to a question of how
could the same emotion, jealousy, function entirely within one’s self where
there is no counter weight to judge by. For the answer again one returns to
Iago.
When taken in
isolation Iago is at the very least a mysterious if not entirely obfuscated
figure. The plays offers flimsy and conflicting motives for Iago’s jealousy,
both of which are only presented by Iago himself and neither of which would
elicit the degree of malice that he unleashes in a rationale human. Iago
jeopardizes his career, life, and reputation in order to achieve his revenge.
Even in this extreme and maniacal internal strife Iago fulfills his symbolism
and embodiment of jealousy. Jealousy, when taken in isolation, is not
rationale, it is extreme, and its origins are often unclear and contradictory.
Jealousy takes no account of anything except its satisfaction. In all these
ways Iago mirrors jealousy exactly. This close relation and near perfect
embodiment of jealous at every metaphysical level leads to abstract conclusions
that begin with asking the question, could the play progress as it did without
Iago.
If one considers,
given the near perfect embodiment of jealousy that Iago has generated, that
Iago does not embody jealousy, but rather in fact is jealousy, the abstract
implications begin to unfold and the evidence for such begins to become clear.
If Iago were not a physical character in the play but rather the abstraction of
jealousy present in the community, interpersonal relationships, and selves of
all the other characters in the play and they all were to fall victim to their
own jealous inclinations, just as they do to Iago’s lures, then the play could
progress as it does without fail. For isn’t it true that the desperate
conclusions to which all the characters attend are drawn to by themselves and
their own mental steering or in Iago’s own words in act II scene III, “and
what’s he then that says I play the villain, When this advice is free I give
and honest, probal to thinking.” Another avenue of evidence for this
abstraction of Iago is his long addresses to the audience, which implies his
ability to function both within the play and outside its boundaries, something
no other character can do.
A critical review
of “Othello” allows for the discernment of the depth of interconnectivity between
Iago and jealousy. It becomes clear that Iago is a character composed of,
driven by, representing, embodying, and possibly even abstractly existing as
jealousy in the communal, interpersonal, and personal levels as a hidden
omnipresent force, universal scale of worth, and mysterious incorrigible innate
emotion. It is a testament to the ability of Shakespeare to so masterfully
compose a character that absolutely embodies a single emotion without
explicitly stating it and confining it entirely within the human experience.
