Of all the characters in Shakespeare's Othello, none is more complex and unknown to the audience than Iago. He is portrayed by every character as the most honest and trustworthy person. Yet, as the audience is well informed by the end of the first act, he appears to be quite the opposite. He's a duplicitous character, honest and kind on the outside, but truly a pure, evil and malignant person on the inside. Throughout the entire play he turns all his friends, who trust him most, against each other. He does this by penetrating their deepest fears and concerns, using that to "make the net that shall emesh them all" into a jealous web of hatred [II. iii. 356]. There are many examples throughout the play that show clearly Iago's villainy, but the motives for his villainy become increasingly unclear to the audience as the play progresses. Iago gives several different possible motives to the audience throughout the play in his different soliloquies and while talking to Roderigo, but he never backs up these motives and for the most part never refers to them again in the play. In this essay, I will prove through evidence in the text that Iago was in fact an honest and caring person who suddenly turned villainous because he was deeply unhappy about the way his life was turning out. Things were not going his way: he did not gain lieutenancy, his rank in society was completely reliable on Othello, he was jealous of Othello's life as well as Cassio's, and most of all honesty was getting him nowhere. I will also prove that Iago is not a complete villain, but that the crimes and murders which occurred could not have happened without the villain which lurked inside the other characters in the play. Iago simply enflamed a jealousy which was already there and therefore cannot be blamed for the actions of others. .
Throughout the play Othello almost every character at one time or another referred to Iago as an honest man while the audience saw Iago cruelly and viciously lie and deceive one character after another, trapping them all in a jealous rage.
