The Humiliation of Iago

Abstract

What does Iago want and why does he do what he does? These questions, endlessly fascinating, often discussed, stand no greater chance of being definitively answered today than they did two hundred years ago, when Coleridge spoke of the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity. In the final analysis, Iago, like all of us, does what he does because he is what he is: Demand me nothing; what you know, you know (V.ii.303).1 Yet if Iago's motives must ultimately remain inscrutable, particular strands of his behavior may yet be explored and understood. Looking closely at how Iago interacts with individual characters, what he wants from each of them, what he wants to do to each of them, how his desires change as the play advances, can illumine much, even if not all, of his mystery. Among these interactions, the one with Desdemona is second only to the one with Othello in complexity and interest. Beginning with nearly entire inattention to Desdemona in his first soliloquy, moving next to desire to be even'd with [Othello], for wife (II.i.299)-that is, to sleep with Desdemona as he imagines Othello has slept with Emilia-Iago moves finally to desire for Desdemona's death, or, more precisely, for a specific kind and location of death: Do it not with poison; strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated (IV.i.207-208). How does Iago arrive at this final attitude? What, other than a reflexive opportunism, a convenient fueling of Othello's jealousy, leads him to call for Desdemona's death by strangulation in the marriage bed? This essay seeks to answer these questions. It argues that the immediate