In ‘Othello” by Shakespeare, the main antagonist, Iago, manipulates those around him in order to obtain what he desires. Iago renders the majority of the plot through his cruel ways, evokes the tragic nature of the play, as the audience/reader is left to witness these acts of cruelty maneuvered by Iago, on our beloved characters. The motivation for Iago’s actions is caused by a major theme in the book, jealousy. Iago feels threatened and undermined by Othello, and through his use of a cruel racist description and inhuman animal imagery comparison to Othello, the reader can discern that race plays an influential part in why Iago has harsh feelings of jealousy. The theme of jealousy renders prominently into Iago’s character at first, being the fuel to his acts of cruelty. The way Iago feels he could revenge himself is by demoralizing Othello, Iago goes about this by lying to Othello, telling him that Desdemona (Othello’s wife) is having an affair with another man (Cassio). In order to get Othello to believe his cruel lie, Iago had to use a number of things. He first uses …show more content…
Iago claims to be helping his “friend” Rodrigo in winning over Desdemona from Othello, however, Iago cruelly just uses him for his personal gain and kills him when he finds the perfect opportunity too. Iago also gains the trust of Othello, due to the cruel way Iago makes Othello feel like he needs him because Othello is somehow “out of place” due to his race. This shows how gullible Othello can be, putting firm trust in Iago, which allows Iago to cruelly expose another on of Othello’s flaws, jealousy. The jealous conviction that Othello now has, causes him to question his reputation, seeing that he is being “cheated” on. This shows how important Othello views his reputation, and how he will do what it takes to try and uphold it, to a