Villainous Iago of Shakespeares Othello Essay -- Othello essays

Villainous Iago of Othello Who can compare in depth of evil to the villainous Iago in William Shakespeares tragic drama Othello? His curse is incomparably destructive on all of those around him. Iagos very language reveals the level at which his evil mind works. Francis Ferguson in Two Worldviews phone all(prenominal) Other describes the types of base, loathsome imagery used by the antagonist Iago when he slips his mask aside while awakening Brabantio Iago is letting loose the condescending passion inside him, as he does from time to time throughout the play, when he slips his mask aside. At such moments he unceasingly resorts to this imagery of money-bags, treachery, and wolf lust and violence. So he expresses his own faithless, envious spirit, and, by the same token, his vision of the populous city of Venice Iagos world, as it has been called. . . .(132) Iago is the perfect bad shout in the sense that his type is just what the audience of 400 years ago judge. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar in The Engaging Qualities of Othello comment on how the character of Iago is the wholly expected type of villain for an Elizabethan audience Iago at once captures the attention of the spectator. He is the personification of the villain that Elizabethans had come to expect from Italian short stories and from Machiavellian commentary. Villains of this type, as well as those of domestic origin, had long been popular on the stage. From the days of the mystery and morality plays, the characters personifying evil invariably had gripped the attention of audiences, for iniquity always stirs more popular excitement than virtue. (127) First of all, Iagos very words paint him for ... ...racter Revealed Through Dialogue. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Literature. N. p. Random House, 1986. Ferguson, Francis. Two Worldviews Echo Each Other. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Gr eenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p. n.p., 1970. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. The Engaging Qualities of Othello. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.