Phrases such as "the thought / Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards- show the extent to which he has allowed his wounded pride to control him, and the possessive attitude suggested by the phrase "Till I am evened with him, wife for wife- infers a susceptibility to such pride being wounded, in the same way as Brabantio when he found that his jewel' had been stolen from him
These occasional indications that Iago is a victim of his own frustration and failed ambitions, and that he is guilty of the same submission to emotion of which he accuses others, show that he is human, if admittedly a particularly psychologically warped one. Although we may not be able to identify with the extent to which Iago takes his jealousy, these moments of very human imagery show us the way in which a normal person could easily become corrupted by such negative emotions, and demonstrate that Iago's denied passion has given way to hypocrisy, as he is far from the gardener' of his own destiny that he would like to believe himself to be. .
However, the imagery used by Iago is predominantly abstract and devilish, with words such as plague', monstrous' and Divinity of hell' permeating his speech, suggesting a more one-dimensional villain who is used as a "dramatic mechanism- to help advance the progression of the play. This external image of Iago as a Vice figure is cemented within his first two sentences, which use the words abhor' and despise' to immediately create an association between Iago and this idea. This factor, along with the frequent soliloquies from Iago in which he attempts almost conspiratorially to explain himself to the audience, portrays him as a pantomime villain', recognising the evil of his own actions but performing them anyway simply because of his evil inclinations. Although this is far from the psychologically warped image Shakespeare wished to present, it serves as an effective fazade for the guiding of the audience toward a desired set of conclusions.
