What Are Iago's Motives In Othello

The tragic love stories that Shakespeare writes always leave readers with endless questions flowing through their minds. While reading Othello, the biggest question Shakespeare left his readers with was what are Iago’s motives? Iago could either be jealous, have a desire for power, be a racist, have a personality disorder, or even be frustrated by the love that Othello has for Desdemona. Throughout the story, none of those reasons are completely clear, but they all could be possible. The reason that stands out the most out of all the possibilities is jealousy. Iago is jealous of Othello’s love, happiness, and respect that he gets from his peers, which motivates him to destroy Othello. The military stances that resemble Othello and Iago differ in many ways. “I follow him to serve my turn upon him” (Othello 2). Iago states …show more content…
Iago never got his happy relationship with Emilia that Othello got with Desdemona. While Othello is happily married to the woman of his dreams, and Cassio is shown as a very popular person with women, Iago lacks the skills of maintaining a good relationship. Emilia, Iago’s wife, finds her relationship with her husband as a chore that they need to keep up with. Iago states, “would she give you so much of her lips as of her tongue she oft bestows on me, you’d have enough” (Othello 6). The meaning of this statement is that he would much rather have a real relationship with Emilia, but she constantly complains or nags to him. He does not trust Emilia as much as he should either, and it drives him insane when he thinks of Emilia ever being with someone else. Their marriage does not appear to be a happy relationship, and that angers Iago into wanting to ruin Desdemona and Othello’s perfect marriage. Through Othello’s public display of affection, Iago sees that his relationship is nothing like theirs and hopes for it, even though he knows it will not