Iago's Manipulation In Othello

In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is a very vindictive and manipulative person and is able to manipulate everyone in a successful ploy to ruin Othello’s life. He verbalizes that his motivation for getting revenge on Othello is because Othello gives Cassio, rather than Iago, the position Iago thinks he deserved, but it goes much deeper than that. Iago is driven by jealousy to seek revenge because Othello has more power, a better marriage, and Othello has more achievements and gets more recognition for them. After Iago becomes Othello’s lieutenant, he chooses not to end his revenge at this point, even though he could have, because of his envy of Othello. Iago is very envious of the power Othello has.

Deception and suspicion are powerful tools that can use trust and mistrust as weapons. Many think that the most powerful weapon is trust and honesty in a relationship but unfortunately suspense and deception over power it in most cases. This can be seen in the play Othello by William Shakespeare, when Othello gets tricked by Iago into thinking his wife is cheating on him and many more cases. In the article How Iago Explains the World, by Lee Siegel it highlights the fact that Iago’s deception and lies work out for him and that he in fact sees the world the right way. Deception overrules honesty in many occasions especially in Shakespeare’s tragedies.

In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is a spurious, manipulative character that fabricates a scheming plan to use Michael Cassio as a scapegoat in ruining Othello’s life. Once again, Iago addresses the crowd with a soliloquy to formulate his plan. Iago seemingly takes on the role of a ringleader, pawning the rest of the characters throughout his act. Earlier in the play, Cassio and Desdemona share a friendly gesture of holding hands, after Desdemona’s debate with Iago. Iago expresses in great detail the prejudices against the female sexuality by claiming that all types of woman, whether beautiful or ugly, are deceitful and ‘sex-crazy’.

Attempting to destroy someone’s life because of jealousy is cruel. Another instance of how Shakespeare conveys that jealousy is the motivation behind committing malicious acts is when jealous Othello decided to kill Desdemona for being “unfaithful” stating, “For to deny each article with oath cannot remove

To try to prove his masculinity to Katherina, he berates and abuses his servants as to make him look manly. He wants to bend Katharina to his will and is willing to be cruel to her, to prove he is able to tame his wife and be virile. This, in turn, causes Curtis to state “By this reckoning he is more shrew than she” (act four, scene one), but Curtis has known Petruchio before this event and has not seen this shrewish side to him before. This suggests Petruchio is only putting on an act and is only presenting himself like that to Katherina, and his true nature is not so shrewish. Petruchio is also described as a shrew on his wedding

Iago in Othello can be compared to the speaker of “To His Coy Mistress” due to their similar thought processes, characteristics, and motives. Iago used manipulation of facts and mind-altering tactics in order to get to Othello. Iago also used the tactics of appealing to reason and appealing to emotion, as did the speaker. Iago kept providing facts, that were not all of the truth, to Othello in order to make Othello believe him. By putting ideas of Desdemona cheating on Othello with Cassio inside of Othello’s head, Othello started imagining situations and having hallucinations.

Deception comes in many forms and can be seen in all kind of ways but mainly when someone purposely causes someone to believe something that isn 't true to gain a personal advantage. Many authors use this tactic in their plays books and other literary work like in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the author uses the technique of deception to mislead Claudius, Gertrude, himself, Ophelia and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spare their feelings and to carry out a crime. Hamlet uses deception throughout the novel, but one way is to distract everyone from his true intention which is to gather information against Claudius to prove he killed his father. Shakespeare contributes all this back into his work by making each character in the play enact on some form of deceit to uncover the obscure truth. Hamlet says that he “essentially [is] not in madness, but mad in craft” in order to deceive everyone and draw attention away from his suspicious activities as he tries to gather evidence against Claudius (3.4.191-2).

The function of jealousy and how it consumes other characters develops the majority of the plot within the play. It primarily serves as a way to incite the character 's psyche and lead them to being reckless and negligent. Specifically, the way jealousy affects the minds of Othello and Roderigo through the manipulation tactics of Iago. Specifically, during many of Othello and Iago’s conversations. Iago slowly makes Othello believe in false proof of Desdemona 's affair, thus Othello begins to psychologically change by gradually turning to murder through justification of Iago’s statements on Desdemona: “One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.

Iago convinces Othello of Desdemona’s infidelity when he“visually” explains how he has caught Cassio and Desdemona together. Iago uses descriptive words to make Othello see the what he wants him to see. In the final scene of the play, Othello kills himself after he realized the truth. It is the conflict between Othello’s deception from Iago and his willingness to mentally distress himself that gives him a tragic ending. Iago’s evil plot against

He acted strange when he was around the king and his attendants and this is evident when he tells his friend Guildenstem that "his uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived" (Shakespeare). In addition, when they enter the court party, Hamlet tells Horatio that "I must be idle," meaning he is trying to feign his madness. He also confesses to his mother that "I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft" (Shakespeare). For Hamlet, he had to pretend to be mad in order to plan and execute his revenge against Claudia. Hamlet’s madness played an important role in the play because he later on became insane after he had feigned his insanity.