Iago: Elusive or Illusive?

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how of all the Shakespearean villains, Othello's Iago is the most charismatic and at the same time the most puzzling. It looks at how his motives are presented to us in his soliloquies and how we are easily able to determine that he is the villain. It attempts to show that Iago never completely takes off his mask, but instead tries to convince us that he in fact has reason for what he does.

From the Paper:

"Iago might appear as a manifestation of pure evil that we should be warned against. But Shakespeare goes much deeper and says that evil is a manifestation of humanity, which is a much more complicated idea and much more difficult to live with. That it is a natural ingredient of who we are. Shakespeare is writing about human pride and what it can lead a person to do. We think that our needs are more important than anything else and we drive at our needs, and then once we get what we need, we either find a new need, or are destroyed by our own desire."

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