Evil Personified…Iago

In the New York Times Sunday Book Review of June 5, 2011, in his review of Sarah Winman’s When God Was A Rabbit, Henry Alford gives as an example of one of life’s biggest questions, “What makes Iago evil?” It is a question that scholars have debated for a long time but I’ve always found the answer simple: Jealousy.

From the very first scene of the play we know that Iago resents the fact that Othello has made Cassio a lieutenant when he claims that “Preferment goes by letter and affection.” In other words, he thinks that favoritism is Othello’s motive and that “there’s no remedy. ‘Tis the curse of service.” Iago feels that he is the victim of an injustice; he feels frustrated because he is helpless to right the “wrong.”

Not only is Iago jealous because Othello promoted Cassio over him, but also he thinks that there is a possibility that Othello “slept” with his wife, Emilia. In his soliloquy closing Act I he says:

  “I hate the Moor,/ And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets/ [H’as] done my office. I know not if’t be true,/ But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,/ Will do as if for surety.”

Even though the infidelity is merely rumor, Iago will act as though it is a fact, giving himself an excuse to “tenderly” lead Othello “by th’ nose/ As asses are.” His jealously and resentment of Othello probably have a racist foundation. One of his actions is to create discord between Othello and Brabantio, Desdemona’s father. He tells Brabantio “an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe.” An underlying cause of racism is a feeling of superiority. The fact that Othello is his superior in rank feeds Iago’s resentment.

At the end of the play after he has killed Desdemona and learns from Emilia the truth about the handkerchief,  Othello asks why Iago, “that demi-devil,” has “ensnar’d my soul and body?” It seems to me that Iago’s answer shows that he regrets nothing: “Demand me nothing; what you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word.” His unwillingness to apologize, in either sense of that word, proves to me that he feels his actions are justified.

Jealousy is a malicious intolerance that blinds one to anything beyond that emotion. It makes Iago a schemer and a manipulator who deceives and betrays everyone. Is he the personification of evil?  One of the definitions of evil (noun) is “a cosmic force producing " injury. Perhaps that is what Shakespeare had in mind when creating Iago, who has more lines in the play than Othello does. However, if it is a “cosmic force,” evil needs no motive. I see in Iago all too human motives.  Instead of personifying evil, Iago may be Shakespeare’s depiction of all that is negative in the human character when emotion is uncontrolled by reason.

Another literary “personification of evil” is Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, the character I’d like to consider next.