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Othello Essay: Iago's Villain

710 Words3 Pages

Far From The Average Fairy Tale Villain The ability to victoriously achieve villainous motives requires a strategic balance of manipulation and obsession. Unlike the easily defeated villains featured in some of our favorite Disney fairytales, the most successful villains must have a motive that ignites their harmful intentions and the proper rhetorical appeals to execute their schemes successfully in a way that ends up just as they initially intended. The play Othello by Shakespeare explores Iago, the villainous character, as he is driven by insecurity and obsession for revenge to pursue merciless intentions. Iago successfully manipulates other characters like pieces of a chess game to accomplish his malicious goal of achieving revenge on the tragic hero, Othello, …show more content…

Iago utilizes manipulative strategies tailored to each character to classify himself as a “successful” villain, which is evidenced by the outcome of his spiteful intentions leading to Othello losing the reputation he has tirelessly worked for. Iago’s successful acts of villainy are demonstrated through his strategy to use the weaknesses and emotional appeals of his victims in favor of manipulating them to fulfill his plan. Othello exclaims, “I heard thee say even now, thou lik’st not that, when Cassio left my wife. What didst not like? And when I told thee he was of my counsel in my whole course of wooing, thou cried’st ‘Indeed?”(Shakespeare 2.3.125-129). As Iago begins to subtly plant the suspicion of Desdemona and Cassio’s affair in Othello’s head after Cassio leaves Desdemona’s room Othello panics and ironically attempts to seek the darker truth that Iago claims to know. Iago is well aware of Othello’s hamartia of jealousy

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