Machiavellian in Othello

Machiavellian in Othello

  • Submitted By: beeblebugged
  • Date Submitted: 11/25/2008 10:10 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 375
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 524

Othello

A villain is usually: evil, sneaky, inventive, deceitful, clever and also a Machiavellian. They way this would have been portrayed in Shakespearean times would have been very difficult as they only had a stage to work with but they would have made the character act in a sneaky guilty way. I think Shakespeare introduced us to the villain in the first scene as he is one of the main characters that is followed throughout the entire play.

Shakespeare shows us Iago is a villain by his speech in Act 1 Scene 1 for example Roderigo says ‘thou Iago, who hast had my purse as if the strings where thine’ this shows that Iago has had money from Roderigo but has not done what Roderigo wants him to. Later in the same scene Brabantio calls Iago a villain and Iago replies with 'You are a senator.' So Iago is telling Brabantio that he is stating the obvious. This shows Iago openly admits to Brabantio that he is a villain. The way Roderigo acts towards Iago tells us Iago is a Machiavellian, getting Roderigo to do what Iago wants him to. While Roderigo thinks Iago has his best interests in mind.

The way the scene starts is as if it was the middle of the conversation. The first dialogue in the play is 'tush never tell me! I take it much unkindly That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.' this sounds as if they had been talking about something previously that we do not know about. We then later find out that it was that Othello (who has not been named yet) had married Desdemona. And this is why Roderigo was unhappy because he wanted to marry Desdemona.

When Iago and Roderigo go to wake up Brabantio, Shakespeare uses language to show the crudeness of Iago as a person. 'Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe.' this was said by Iago to Brabantio and in Shakespeare's time this would have been very rude and not something that would be said lightly. On the other hand Roderigo is more...

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