Othello - Is Iago the most important character in the play?

 

The character of Iago can be analysed for his excellence in manipulating others in order to accomplish his evil motives. In that sense, he is the most important character that made all the other characters victims in his scheme in the tragedy Othello.  Do you agree?

According to my reading, there are three premises in the question:

·       Iago is good at manipulating others in order to accomplish his evil motives.

·       This makes him the most important character.

·       In his capacity as the most important character Iago makes all the other characters victims in his scheme.

Based on my reading of the text, while I agree with the take that Iago is quite good at manipulating others in order to accomplish his aims which make him the prime mover of the plot, I do not believe that he is the most important character in the play. The reason for my belief that Iago is not the most important character lies mostly in the title. The drama is named after the protagonist Othello in the drama, Iago being just the antagonist. The dramatist makes the story of the play a story about Othello. An antagonist, in such a situation, is a tragic convention who makes use of the existing tragic flaw of the protagonist enabling the fall of the protagonist. Thereby, a great man like Othello needs a worthy adversary to bring about his fall. Had Iago been anything less than what he was that would adversely affect the heroic stature of the hero, making him “an every-man's dummy”. Consequently, the complexity and the intelligence of the antagonist in Othello is a tribute to the protagonist of the play. Simply said, Iago offers a foil for the simple heroic grandeur of the protagonist and heightens the pathos and thereby increases the cathartic effect felt by the audience; however, he does not create the tragic flaws in Othello, Desdemona, Cassio or any other character. Iago is a clever opportunist who makes use of what is available. However, whenever Iago plots to destroy Othello, the protagonist rises to the occasion due his heroic qualities - his conviction in his arête and kleos, his simplicity, his appreciation of beauty and his belief in justice and morality. Consequently, the pathos and the subsequent catharsis generated by the play results from Othello’s fall; therefore, the eponymous hero Othello is the most important character in the play. While Iago is necessary for the fall of the hero, the play is not about the fall of Iago: Iago even at the beginning of the play is a fallen creature in all possible sense of the term.

Let us look at how Shakespeare makes use of the character of Iago to bring about the fall of Othello (peripateia), the subsequent understanding of his tragic flaw (anagnorisis) and the resulting restoration of his heroic stature at the end of the play. Othello, following the tragic convention, is a larger than life figure with a purely linear way of thinking as indicated by the way he deals with Brabantio’s accusations and threats and his speech at the Senate (eg). All tragic heroes have a tragic flaw and Othello’s is his obsession of his sense of arête (excellence) and kleos (renown). Othello does not have a family or property due to his life of soldiering; therefore, his entire wealth is limited to kleos and arête he had earned by performing soldierly feats. Understandably, he considers any threat to his kleos and arête as threat to his very being. Iago hints at his awareness of Othello’s thinking when he complains to the audience of Othello’s pride in rejecting his suit for lieutenancy. The Venetian society seconds his sense of “self”: Othello becomes the general of the Venetian army, earns repeated invitations to the house of the most powerful man of Venice, wins Desdemona and is appointed as the governor of Cyprus based on nothing but arête and kleos conveyed by the story of his heroic adventures; all the characters including Othello himself agree that Othello’s exterior would frighten Venetians and that his race, age and socioeconomic circumstances would stand against him should he attempt to make a place for himself in the Venetian society. It is in this light that Iago’s actions must be viewed: Iago makes use of Othello’s Achilles’ Heel – his pride in his arête and kleos – by suggesting that the woman he won with his story had got tired of him even before their marriage was consummated and turned to a man of her own “nature,/Of years, of country, credit, every thing” and thereby set the chain of tragic events in motion.                        

In his capacity as the antagonist, Iago’s enmity towards Othello stems mainly from Othello’s refusal to give him the post of his lieutenant Othello had given to Cassio, who like Othello is an outsider to Venice. Iago considers Cassio as an entirely unsuitable person for the post and his appointment as a personal insult to himself. Iago also mentions that Othello may have slept with his wife Emilia – this with little to no evidence. Irrespective of his sense of being wronged, Iago has the sense to know that he is unable take revenge from Othello given the disparity of their status – he was the lowly ancient to the great general who he himself has acknowledged as the only man who could save Venice, the seat of reason, from the irrational barbaric forces represented by the Ottomites. However, an event presents itself in the form of Desdemona’s elopement and her subsequent hasty marriage to the tragic hero. Iago makes use of Rodrigo, one of the curled darlings of Venice Desdemona has rejected, in order to set Desdemona’s father whose word has double the weight of that of the Duke of Venice due to his great wealth after the Othello. The charge is mixing of races using witch craft, an offence that would have cost Othello his life under normal circumstances. However, to Iago’s displeasure his plan does not work. Instead of bringing about Othello’s disgrace and demise, the event highlights Othello’s necessity for the well-being of Venice and reinforces his role as the protagonist and the tragic hero. Unperturbed, Iago set out to create a rift between Othello and Cassio. This of course, we know, does not work as Othello himself tells Desdemona that he would reinstate Cassio in due course. The way Othello handles the perilous situation involving the drunken Cassio highlights his quick thinking and leadership qualities as well as his judgement of people.

Next, Iago tries to poison Othello against Cassio and his wife making use of his ignorance of the Venetian customs and his underlying insecurity as the outsider (the Other). Here, despite his insecurity, Othello insists on seeing evidence before taking action in contrast to Iago who in similar circumstances would not hesitate to destroy a man without any evidence at all. Several times Othello attempts to brush aside the suspicions planted in his mind by Iago when confronted by the simple truth of Desdemona’s evident devotion and love for him which makes the audience think positively of the judgement of the hero. It takes all of Iago’s evil genius to finally convince Othello that Desdemona had sinned against not only her marriage vows but also god himself by committing adultery. It must be noted that Shakespeare’s patron Queen Elizabeth’s own father had beheaded three of his six wives for committing adultery. So, in killing Desdemona Othello is exercising his agency as the head of the family (paterfamilias) who enacts laws of the state and religion within the family. The Duke acknowledges this privilege accorded to the paterfamilias when he invites Desdemona’s father to give the punishment he deemed suitable for Desdemona’s abduction in the first act. In this regard, even at his worst, Othello, unlike Iago, is conscious of beauty and refuses to harm Desdemona’s beauty; thus, instead of strangling or beheading her, Othello chooses to suffocate Desdemona. Iago, on the other hand, murders his wife Emilia brutally without any feeling of contrition to save his own neck.

In the end, Othello realizes his fault, repents and kills the Turk in him, so that the essence of Othello would remain untainted and heroic. Shakespeare allows one of the most poignant speeches in the play to Othello just before his suicide. The Venetian dignitaries recall his former glory in their references to Othello after his death (eg). Iago, on the other hand, is shut up – he says he would not speak any more. In spite of his declaration of his heroism in the initial act, Iago runs away and then is brought back ignominiously and sentenced to prolonged torture.

Hence, it is clear that Iago, with all his complexities, is there in the play to highlight the character of the tragic hero Othello. True that it is Iago’s actions drives the events of the plot, but his evil genius instead of making him the most important character of the play offers a foil that limelights the heroic stature of Othello, and to an extent Desdemona and Cassio. Consequently, Iago is a merely tool Shakespeare had used to underscore the tragic grandeur of Othello, the most important character of the play.