Iago's Evil In Othello

Never has there been such an malicious, maleficent, villain as Iago. He was manipulative, and treated everyone as means to meet his ends. To make it all worse, we don’t know why he did all these terrible things. Thanks to his actions the plot of the play was set in motion, and stayed in motion. Although one can argue the characters in the play would have been happier without him. The play would not have had a reason to exist without Iago. So it seems that his evil was necessary.

Before we can explain his actions, Iago’s character. Some could see him as a sociopath. He doesn’t see people as people. Everyone is a disposable tool and he doesn’t seem to love anyone but himself. For example, the person he is suppose to love the most, his wife Emilia, is the one he abuses the most. He often calls her an unfaithful floozy to her face. The only time he shows any semblance of interest in her is when she does something to help his plot along.

One can also see Iago as ambitious. The first reasons he gives for ruining Othello’s life, is Othello’s choice in officers. Instead of promoting Iago to lieutenant, he picks Michael Cassio to be his right hand. This wouldn’t be such a problem except that Iago sees himself as a better choice to a “Florentine...That never set a squadron in the …show more content…
He is always the smartest person in the room, or at least he is to himself. All his asides and soliloquies praise himself in some way or another. At the end of Act 1, Scene iii, he starts with “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse… If I would time expend with such a snipe.” Iago is making fun of the poor, lovelorn fool, Roderigo. Iago promises Roderigo a roll in the hay with Othello’s wife, Desdemona, a women he has been courting for a long time. Yet, the only thing Iago does is steal Roderigo’s money, make a fool out of him, and kill him once he is no longer useful. Social dissociation, ambition, and arrogance aren’t his only