Villainous Iago of Shakespeares Othello Essay -- Othello essays

wicked Iago of Othello Who can compare in depth of unrighteous to the villainous Iago in William Shakespeares tragic drama Othello? His villainy 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 Echo Each opposite describes the types of base, loathsome imagery used by the antagonist Iago when he slips his veil aside while awakening Brabantio Iago is letting loose the wicked irritation inside him, as he does from time to time throughout the play, when he slips his mask aside. At such moments he always resorts to this imagery of money-bags, treachery, and animate being lust and violence. So he expresses his own faithless, envious spirit, and, by the like token, his vision of the populous city of Venice Iagos world, as it has been called. . . .(132) Iago is the perfect frightful guy in the sense that his type is just what the audience of cd years ago imparted. Lou is B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar in The pleasing Qualities of Othello comment on how the percentage 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 uplift 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. reprinting from Literature. N. p. Random House, 1986. Ferguson, Francis. Two Worldviews Echo Each Other. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. Sa n Diego Greenhaven 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.