The Iago Effect - Norton, John J
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One of the most compelling questions at the heart of Shakespeare's tragic play Othello is "What does it mean to be human?" Two dominant answers are placed in tension from the very beginning of the story. Iago, a conniving man of treachery and deceit, proposes that to be human is to be a consuming beast, selfish, and capable of little else than seeking to satisfy desire. Conversely, the title character Othello and his wife Desdemona propose that to be human is to be full of purpose and dignity. At their best, humans sacrifice for one another and courageously seek to honor each other, no matter…mehr

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One of the most compelling questions at the heart of Shakespeare's tragic play Othello is "What does it mean to be human?" Two dominant answers are placed in tension from the very beginning of the story. Iago, a conniving man of treachery and deceit, proposes that to be human is to be a consuming beast, selfish, and capable of little else than seeking to satisfy desire. Conversely, the title character Othello and his wife Desdemona propose that to be human is to be full of purpose and dignity. At their best, humans sacrifice for one another and courageously seek to honor each other, no matter the cost. A virtuous human being makes sacrifices for his neighbor, because he recognizes in her the image of God, animated with divine breath. The Iago Effect is a form of manipulation by which a person is convinced to think less of her/himself over a period of time. This effect degrades not only one's personal dignity, but it also degrades one's value for others. The final result of the Iago Effect, after the victim has been convinced of her/his simplicity, is a complete loss of human value. This loss may manifest in the victim committing acts of violence against her/himself or against others. The Iago Effect is a process that Shakespeare presents in his tragedy Othello. The process is amplified in my novelette, where I provide character details, internal thoughts, and dialogue that illustrate the degradation caused by the Iago Effect. This process of degradation involves what I call the tragic simplification of human complexity. When the complex and beautiful are reduced to the simple and mundane, we see a tragic loss of value. In the hands of an evil conspirator like Iago, Othello is tragically reduced from a skilled leader and sacrificial friend to a racial other. At the center of Iago's manipulation of Othello is a reductionist view of the human. In Iago's hands, Othello exchanges his confidence for insecurity, his strength for weakness, and his open clarity for secrecy. Iago draws Othello into the shadows and into secrecy. Along these lines, Edith Sitwell describes Iago as "a subterranean devil, whose voice comes to us muffled by the earth of the world, and of his nature. That is why it sounds so small, but it is nonetheless deadly" (32). Iago is subterranean, working beneath the surface, and hiding his shameful acts from plain sight. Othello is anything but subterranean at the beginning of the play, rejecting Iago's encouragement to hide by claiming that he "must be found" (1.2.32).
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