Unfortunately, the international language of Shakespearean (or whatever) caught me off guard. So why did that guy lie about the handkercheif and Desmodina cheating on Othello? I couldn't understand his motive. Literally... And I forgot his name so bare with me.
shareIago's grudge against Othello goes back to when Cassio was promoted to Othello's chief Lieutenant over Iago, who felt his qualifications were superior to Cassio's. There is also a not-so-subtle suggestion that Iago's hate of Othello is race-based. Ambition and racism - a dangerous combination.
"I've been smart; I recommend pleasant. You can quote me" - Elwood P. Dowd
My friends and I were talking one day about Shakespearean literature and language we came up with an interesting motive for all of the villainy that Iago comitted.
We came up with the idea that Iago may have been infatuated with Othello. He may have wanted him!! Think about it, Shakespeare always had sexual innuendos in his works and also a lot of homo eroticism in between the lines. He wanted Othello in a more intimate way and when he married Desdemona, those dreams were now impossible of happening. That along with the fact that Cassio was given a position of power over him and his treacherous nature, its not impossible to believe that these were the reasons for his actions.
Just some theories.
Those are the motives, but your missing out on one: his suspicion that Othello had an affair with Emilia. He says so in his first silliquoly, if i remember correctly. Where he says he has long thought Othello has 'done his office' 'betwixt his sheets' etc. And then goes onto say merely cuz of this suspicion, he'll beleive othello has done his wife.
I think that's a pretty big motivational factor lol
Yes, Othello as a homo-erotic text is one of the resistant readings of the play.
sharePray tell, what exactly *is* a 'resistant reading'?!
The 'homosexual frustration' angle is rarely if ever discussed; by far the motive regarded as most credible by the bulk of readers of the play is Iago's belief that he should have gotten the promotion and higher pay that came with it. Iago himself talks about this early on. If he had wanted a man, he could have gotten one any time; it takes something else entirely to make him want to destroy somebody else's marriage. I say it again, simply read the words of Iago and his friends, it is explained within their first few scenes.
"You're not right in the head/
and nor am I/ and this is why/
This is why I like you"
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I think that Iago's upset over Othello doing his wife had more to do with standing than with love. Whether or not Iago sets any store by romantic love (and he certainly doesn't have a very loving relationship with his wife), Othello has nonethless "done his office"--just as he has promoted Cassio to the position that should have been Iago's. This was a culture where honor and standing were of great importance, and Iago is being denied the standing that he feels he deserves by someone who isn't even a Venetian.
There's also a theory that Iago is impotent, and as we all know impotent people are really bitter and want to DESTROY. I personally don't think that there's all that much support for it, but certainly more than there is for an "Iago loves Othello" theory.
Any student of Elizabethan drama will tell you that character motivation was not considered to be an important (or even relevant) component of drama at that time. The idea of set personalities based on the balance (or more accurately, imbalance) of the four humours was held to be common knowledge, and Shakespeare (regardless whether he personally believed that the humours dictated personality or not) wrote his dramas under those same assumptions. It should be very clear then why the motivations of Shakespeare's major characters cannot be objectively categorized 99% of the time; he never intended those motivations important enough to be thoroughly established.
Therefore, the 'true' reason behind Iago's hatred of Othello will never be known as it either 1) died with Shakespeare or 2) never existed in the first place (that is, Shakes created an antagonist who hates only because the story requires him to and never thought much of it after that).
But on to conjecture anyway:
Personally, I get the impression that Iago only has his sights set on Othello because Othello is the character who has the most to lose. Iago seems to fit the mold of what in the present would be considered a sociopath; he loves (or perhaps values is a better word) only himself, and for all others he feels either nothing at all or contempt. He hates Othello because he hates EVERYBODY, and he focuses his venom on Othello because Othello has the most to lose: political power, respect and honor from his military prowess, the most beautiful wife in the whole of Cyprus. We also know that Iago is bitter over being made ensign (3rd in command) under both Cassio and Othello; he makes it clear that he believes himself to be superior to Cassio in terms of deserved rank, and given what else we know about Iago's ego it is not unlikely that he feels that he deserves Othello's position as well. And, as has been mentioned, he may hate Othello for being a Moor as well (note, however, that Othello is NOT from Africa as some seem to think; he is a Moor from Spain, a descendant of North Africans, who tend to have very dark skin but are not actually 'black.' From the first performance on, he has always been played as 'black' because Shakespeare is exaggerating the features of a Moor for dramatic contrast; in reality, Othello would have extremely dark olive skin and would still bear the brunt of European prejudice, even though he was not 'black' like the people of sub-Saharan Africa.) Anyways, however you choose to interpret Iago's character, he remains a fascinating villain.