Iago

Play

Othello

Summary

Othello's ensign and the supreme Shakespearean villain, Iago is a master manipulator who orchestrates the destruction of Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, Roderigo, and his own wife Emilia through a sustained campaign of deceit driven by wounded professional pride, racial resentment, and what Coleridge famously called "motiveless malignity" — a malice that exceeds any rational explanation. He speaks more lines than almost any other Shakespeare character and spends much of the play in intimate direct address to the audience, making us complicit in his plotting even as we are appalled by it.

Notable Quotations

"I am not what I am." *(1.1)*

"I know my price, I am worth no worse a place." *(1.1)*

"Who steals my purse steals trash... But he that filches from me my good name / Robs me of that which not enriches him / And makes me poor indeed." *(3.3 — spoken to Othello, with lethal irony)*

"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on." *(3.3)*

"Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak word." *(5.2)*

Cross-references

• Othello — the play
• Tragedies
• character_othello — his general, whom he destroys
• character_desdemona — his ultimate victim
• character_cassio — his stated rival and target
• character_emilia_othello — his wife, who exposes him
• character_roderigo — his dupe and tool