Iago and the Literary Tradition of a Villain in William...

Iago and the Literary Tradition of a Villain in William Shakespeares Othello In this essay, I am going to explain how Iago conforms to the literary tradition of a villain. Firstly, to answer this question, we must understand what exactly is meant by the term villain. The Collins Plain English Dictionary states that a villain is someone who deliberately sets out to harm other people. It is clear that Iago is clearly someone who has intentions of destroying other people, whether they are his main targets or merely pawns in his game. Shakespeare himself created some of the most memorable villains of all time. The list includes Iago (Othello), Richard III, Cornwall and Edmund (King†¦show more content†¦He wants to be known and remembered for his evilness and immorality rather then as a kind, giving man. King Lear character Edmund strives to destroy his brother and father to gain Gloucesters title. We can conclude from this that a villain is an individual (male or female), who for various reasons, intends to destroy another person, usually for his or her own gain. More often than not, a literary villain works alone or in twos and threes, typically never more than this because the more people who know about the plot, the more chance there is of being found out. Literary villains are insatiable and ruthless. They stop at nothing to obtain what they want. They obliterate those in their way without a second thought. They cannot and do not have a conscience as this would mean feeling emotions like pity and guilt which in turn would stop them from committing the wrong deeds they are so renowned for. But Iago has to be the most machiavellian character Shakespeare has ever created. Literary critic William Robert Turnball points out Iago is an unbeliever in, and denier of all things spiritual, who only acknowledges God, like Satan, to defy him. It could be argued that there are three main characteristics that are associated with portraying a villain. Detachment - The villain in question must have the ability to separate himself or herself from a situation.Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of William Shakespeare s Othello889 Words   |  4 PagesThat is to say, literary works, only serve a critical role inasmuch as they are used to hold some sort of lens or mirror to the societies which they are investigating. This might seem like a thoroughly modern mode of inquiry and something which is confined to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The case is that throughout history many different writers have used their voice as a platform to deal with things they saw as issues in their respective cultures and societies. William Shakespeare inRead MoreRacism in Othello and An Echo in the Bone2296 Words   |  10 Pageshis article, ‘Repossessing the Slave Past: Caribbean Histography And Dennis Scott’s An Echo In The Bone,’ he quotes Scott, who had received awards at the Jamaica festival literary competitions in the 1960s, expressing the view that when an ex-slave society â€Å"imposes discipline on itself from within, it begins to wipe out a tradition of submission. [†¦] it is the beginning of a freedom to choose† and the specific choice that he made in An Echo in The Bone was to renegotiate the terms of Jamaican historiographyRead MoreEssay on The Moor in the Works of William Shakespeare4150 Words   |  17 PagesThe Sources and Representations of the Moor in the Works of Shakespeare      Ã‚  Ã‚   One theme consistently reemployed throughout Shakespeares plays is that of the Other. The Other is usually characterized as a character that is somehow separated, stigmatized, or noted as being different from the mainstream ideal. For the Elizabethan England of Shakespeares time, it may have been a self-defensive maneuver against the encroachment of something which threatened too close to home (Bartels 450). BryantRead MoreDuchess Of Malf Open Learn10864 Words   |  44 Pagesout textual analysis recognise some of the historical contexts of the play. Background John Webster (c.1580–c.1634) was Shakespeare’s contemporary, though sixteen years younger. He makes a brief appearance in the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love as a boy who tortures mice, spies on Shakespeare’s love-making, and feels inspired to take up the pen himself after seeing Shakespeare’s blood-soaked revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus. ‘Plenty of blood. That’s the only writing’, he asserts. This affectionate