Iago in Context

Iago uses the Elizabethan views and stereotypes to manipulate Othello to do his bidding. Iago assumes that Othello is insecure due to his ethnic heritage, and uses this to his advantage. Iago himself is influenced by the context--the Elizabethan society. While Iago is correct of Othello’s insecurity, it is because of the attitudes towards Blackamoors during the Elizabethan era that Othello was insecure itself. There is evidence that there were a considerable number of black people in England in the late 16th Century. But in 1601, Elizabeth I gave orders to deport them, citing concerns about their irregular behaviour and a fear that allowing them to stay in England would lead to overpopulation. The Elizabethan portrait of the dark-skinned “other” clearly established him as a bestial force, dangerous because of their sexuality, temper and magical powers. Generally, a moor represented in plays before Othello confirmed these stereotypes. Shakespeare incorporates these racial stereotypes and uses Iago to depict them, for example Iago calls Othello a ‘barbary horse’, and claims that Desdemona will have children who will ‘neigh’.
A modern audience may ridicule at Iago’s charges that Desdemona has been spirited away by witchcraft, but to an Elizabethan, her action of elopement with a Moor must have needed some explanation. Shakespeare wrote the play when public anxiety in England over the dangers of witchcraft was intense. Paradoxically, witchcraft would have been the rational explanation.
Power, its distribution and shifts of power are implicitly explored through Iago, his motivations and his characteristics. When discussing the promotion Iago did not receive, Iago claims that ‘he knows his price’ and that ‘he is no worse a place’. While this could be dismissed as an overreaction to not receiving a position, it must be taken into context. Iago is 28 years old and by considering the nature of the Elizabethan times, it is possible that Iago had been a soldier for