Explain your interpretation of Iago's character and role in the play so far.
His relationship with the audience.
His motives.
The way he deals with other characters.
As soon as the play begins, Iago is presented to the audience as an ambitious but deeply bitter character who is eager to prey upon the good nature of others in order to advance his own social status. The image of him that Shakespeare portrays through lines such as "I am not what I am- is one of pure duplicity and malevolence, enabling him to be used as a dramatic device to highlight the flaws and potential weaknesses in the characters of others. However, he is also shown as a proud soldier whose self-esteem has been wounded by several of what he perceives to be severe wrongdoings, so that he can be used to show the eventual fate of those who relent to their lust for vengeance and retaliation and allow it to rule their actions.
Iago's motives are rarely called into question by the other characters, who always believe him to be acting out of sheer compassion and honesty'. However, he often attempts to justify himself both to them and to the audience, suggesting that perhaps he must try to convince even himself of the justifications for his manipulation of the people around him. This image is augmented by the fact that he appears to modulate between various motives each time he explains them; at the beginning he claims to Roderigo that he is acting out of revenge for a lack of military recognition, to serve my turn upon [Othello]', which presents his view of the army simply as a power structure, a scaffold up which to claw his way in order to reach greater positions of power. This shows that he does not share Othello and Cassio's romanticised view of the epic hero and the glorious conquest, instead favouring a more practical approach, but the fact that he favours traditional views of progression rather than Othello's practical promotion of Cassio as the most appropriate person for the job presents a paradoxical element of his character.
