Iago's Personification Of Evil In Othello

637 Words3 Pages
In the Shakespeare play, Othello, Iago, the antagonist, is the personification of evil. He had the right to be upset about not getting the promotion. However, with the course of action he took, it was a gross overreaction. His main characteristics are that he was two-faced, manipulative, deceptive, and ruthless. Alone these traits are amoral, but put together you have a real villain. A villain out to cause damage as possible to his targets, not considering the people he impacts. Considering how the performance ended, it was clear that he had some margin of success in that attempt. In his first siliqua in scene one, Iago revealed his distaste and plans for Othello. He hoped for the death of Othello(or the Moor). He spoke of how he planned to cause a conflict between Cassio and Othello by making Othello think that Cassio was Desdemona’s lover. Iago, acknowledged how evil and maniacal his plan was by describing it as "monstrous". With the of know the result of Iago’s plot, that description was very accurate.…show more content…
The best example of his “help” was when he informed Othello that Desdemona was cheating on him. He did this because he was a “good” friend. Through this falsehood, Iago ruined the bond between Desdemona and Othello. Another example was Iago was stealing all of Rodrigo’s wealth. Iago claimed to be passing gifts from Roderigo to Desdemona, but in fact Iago collected them for himself. For this reason, Iago had to kill Roderigo, because he was demanding for results, to have Desdemona, or he wanted his money back. This lead to Iago pushing Rodrigo to make an attempt on Cassio’s life. The attempt failed, but Iago returned and stabbed Roderigo in an alley, successfully killing
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