Manipulation in Othello

Manipulation in Shakespeare's plays is a very powerful tool often used by the villains in these plays. Manipulation allows this villain to become a very powerful and influential character throughout the play, causing other characters to do things that are not in their initial personality. This power that these people have over other characters in the plays allow them to gain power in increase their status on the downfall of others. These actions are portrayed as monstrous. Usually, these villains cannot keep up with the lies that they have told, and therefore they find their downfall catches up with them. It is interesting how these characters use phrases and portions of the truth in order to convince and control other characters. In Shakespeare's Othello, Iago is the jealous fueled evil character in this play and causes the downfall of Othello. He uses other characters as pawns in his revenge filled scheme that causes them to fall by the wayside as the play progresses. Iago uses Othello's own insecurities and doubts about himself, his marriage and his fears of Desdemona cheating on him. Iago sees this weakness as an opportunity to exact his revenge and he uses characters like Roderigo to help him accomplish this. In Shakespeare's Richard III, Richard is a master of propaganda and manipulation in order to get the crown of England. He uses is speech ability to somewhat out weigh the fact that he does not look like a king, this speech ability allows him to couple his propaganda with messages of manipulation to undermine the family in power and gain the support of the people. This paper will attempt describe the methods by which these two characters use their monstrous power of speech to manipulate different characters for their own gain.

Iago is one of the more interesting characters in Shakespeare's plays based on the way he is able to present himself but still maintain his ulterior motives under the surface. Iago is the perfect example of a character that tangles on the theme of good VS evil (Hawkes, 160). Iago is a person that is very sensitive to rejection and displays that when he is passed over for a position to Cassio that he felt he had deserved "I know my price, I am worth no worse a place" (I.I.12). This is really what triggers Iago against Othello and shows the reader just how motivated he is to get back at Othello. This is a man that basis' a great deal of his self worth off his reputation, pride and when he is passed over for this promotion his pride is wounded, there is a lot of jealousy and a great deal of personal injustice felt. This feeling of injustice allows us to dive into the personality of Iago and shows how much hate he has for the moor, Othello. Now, with what we know of Iago, he is a Venetian soldier that has fought and returned from battle and he is now known as 'honest Iago'. This view of Iago carries over through most of the play and it is this image that he uses to disguise his real intentions and gain the trust of the other characters in the play (McCloskey, 25). The events that occur from the beginning of the play to the end are filled with ulterior methods that are proposed/controlled by Iago to benefit him and to the befalling of Othello in the end. Iago poses a choice to Othello throughout the play with one option the evil side, the one that Iago is pushing for, and the one of good, the side that Desdemona is on but does not know it. The choice that Iago manufactures is one that makes Othello choose between his own insecurities, doubts that he ahs about his marriage, his wife and the probable proposition that Iago is giving him. The other side to the decision is the proposal by Iago that Desdemona; Othello's wife is cheating on him. Now, Othello being a black man in a very white society would be more inclined to believe this because of his skin color/the fact that he knows this marriage would not be accepted (Hawkes, 161).

Iago is the type of person that takes justice into his own hands and uses his own judgment to see what is right and wrong. This is brought on past war experience and his past war experience when he was a soldier in the Venetian army. Iago brings this back into the civilized world that he is no immersed in, and we see as a reader, he has not come back from deciding what it justice and what is not. At this point of the play Iago has immersed himself into his revenge motives, and really shows the reader how much his pride has been hurt in this situation. To feed into this, rumors of Othello "playing him false with Amelia" has also greatly damaged his pride with the world that surrounds him. Othello in the play is portrayed as a very strong and independent person before we know too much about him, later in the play when he is introduced; we find out that he is a black man. This gives Iago an advantage when it comes to bringing Othello down in his revenge plot (McClosky, 26). Iago is a master of using psychological suggestion in order to make people think that something is there when there really is not, he has a very keen intellect and he uses that to his advantage when talking with Othello. Iago is a very observant person when it comes to seeing other people's weaknesses, in short, he is able to pick up on characters insecurities and use them against them. With Roderigo for example, he knows that Roderigo is a very good businessman, based on his wealth, but he knows that his one weak point is with women, specifically Desdemona. "It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician", this quote is an excellent example of just how much in love Roderigo is with Desdemona, and it also shows how Roderigo almost sets himself up to Iago (I.III.296-298). This sets Roderigo up to fail because now Iago knows just how much Desdemona means to him, so he can use this weakness for his own gain. He then goes on to try and get his financial means out of Roderigo because he knows that there is a great deal of wealth to get out of it "Put money in thy purse"(I.III. ), This is the exact part of the play where Iago is in control of Roderigo and ultimately sets in motion his downfall.

Othello is a character of great accomplishments despite the fact that he is a black man in a very white controlled world. He is a character that had many accomplishments over his life, but nothing more worthy then marrying Desdemona, the Dukes daughter. This is quite a feet during this time because he was a black man marrying a very well established aristocrat women and this would have been almost unheard of at these times. The love that Desdemona and Othello share is one that is rock solid if you look from the outside in, but if you look at the two people that are in this relationship, specifically Othello, then the reader notes