Is Iago A Hero Or A Villain

In the studies of Shakespeare, there are many ways to approach and analyze his plays, yet the most common ones are to dissect the characters’ purpose and engagement throughout a story. Shakespeare has created many well-known characters that may seem life-like to the audience and there are others that seem impossible to exist in reality. In most of Shakespeare’s plays, there is a hero and with a hero, there is usually a villain. Some audience members generally have a tendency to speculate great analytical views about the heroes of the play while villains are ignored and perceived to be even more evil. This may be true, but the portrayal of villainous characters does not mean that they were forced to become evil. The query is how a villain becomes
evil and what makes them remain evil throughout the play. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘villain’ as a “man naturally disposed to base or criminal actions, or deeply involved in the commission of disgraceful crimes” (“villain, n.”). Without any doubt, villains are the type of characters to perform evil acts because they are determined to get what they want by ignoring other people’s sufferings and downfall. Moreover, they only focus on what matters to them and how they are going to achieve their objectives. Shakespeare has created many memorable villains in his plays, and oftentimes, they have an inevitable appeal to audience members. Two such villains are Iago in Othello and Edmund in King Lear. After making other characters undeservingly suffer, they also eventually endure their own misery at the end of each play. But why would a villain have to suffer in the end? In what scenario would a villain ever have a happy ending? The purpose of this paper is to paradoxically argue that villains can have the right motives to perform evil acts based on their primary objectives. However, when villains are too absorbed in themselves and act excessively, they demonstrate why evil characters never triumph in the end. Ultimately, the audience loses their sympathy on evil characters because they realize how selfish they are when they go beyond their limits of pursuing further schemes.

First, there is nothing wrong with a character performing an evil act as long as the reasoning behind every action is justified. The audience does not have to support a villain’s actions, but it can be entertaining for the people that treat it like a comedy. Othello is a perfect example in which a play can have comedic elements but conclude as a tragedy. With Iago as the manipulator of the play, he is involved in almost every scene; even when he is not physically on stage, his name is mentioned throughout the play. As Jonathan Green explains, “The power Iago holds over the action and the cast of the play is appealing in itself; the few scenes in which he is absent lack the magnetism the audience feels from Iago's masterful subtlety” (Green 31). Without Iago in this play, there is little entertainment for the audience because he is the catalyst for other characters’ actions in a way that only the audience can understand; as a result, Iago is essential to the development of dramatic irony throughout Othello. But what is his purpose in the play? Iago seeks revenge on Othello for giving Cassio the lieutenant position, and he tries to take revenge on Cassio for taking the position. From the very beginning, the audience can empathize with Iago because he knows that Cassio can “never set a squadron in the field” (I.i. 20). It seems as though Othello’s judgment in choosing the right lieutenant is questionable because he clearly chose someone that is as gullible as him. By all means, Iago sets the right tone of the play because, not only does he effectively manipulate Cassio and Othello, but he successfully obtains the new honour as lieutenant. Hereafter, Iago manipulates Othello and Cassio into believing he is ‘Honest Iago’ and, at this point, the audience assumes that the character’s journey has concluded since he has realized his goals.

However, Iago is not the type of villain to just earn an honorary status; he wants something more. While Iago’s first motive was to become a lieutenant, he devises other, more ambitious motives and evil schemes with which the audience is unable to empathize – in other words, Iago becomes a character that the audience deems undeserving of sympathy. At the onset of the play, the audience can predetermine that Iago is the devil of the play because of his hatred on Othello and Cassio, but they do not anticipate his reprehensible influence across the other subplots of the play. At this point, Iago’s status as a villain is solidified because his hatred is excessive and directed toward characters that did nothing wrong to him. For example, Emilia and Desdemona never harmed Iago; in fact, they are actually the ones who indirectly assist him with his evil scheme. But since he has no feelings for them, he makes assumptions about them since they are below his social class position. This is exemplified when Roderigo has doubts for the love of Desdemona and Iago replies:

It cannot be long that Desdemona should continue her love to the Moor
Put money in thy purse nor he his to her.
It was a violent commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration put but money in thy purse.
These Moors are changeable in their wills fill thy purse with money.
The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth.
When she is sated with his body she will find the errors of her choice. (I.i.331-339).

In this situation, Iago not only makes disrespectful comments about Othello but he suggests that Desdemona is too sexually active.
This suggestion can be understood as resulting from his chief goal of deceiving Roderigo but also from his misogyny. It seems that Iago truly hates women because, despite using them to seek revenge on Cassio and Othello, he repeatedly expresses his disgust toward them. For example, when referring to his own wife, he says that: “She puts her tongue a little in her heart / And chides with thinking” (II.i.105-106). The ultimate display of Iago’s contempt toward women is when he leads Emilia’s and Desdemona’ husbands to murder them. For these reasons, Iago is definitely the only person to blame for Othello’s bloodbath; he manipulates many characters and transitions a comedic play to a tragic ending. In the end, Iago was too self-absorbed because, when he realized how easily he manipulated Othello and Cassio, he decided to wield other characters for his own benefit. Evidently, Iago demonstrates that, even when villains achieve their primary objectives, they destroy other character’s lives for the sake of their excessive ambition. This demonstrates how evil characters never triumph in the end because they lose the audience’s empathy and their lives as a consequence of pursuing excessively evil
schemes.