Blog 5

Iago’s Sexist Language (Blog#5)
Iago considers woman nothing more than a “sex machine “. According to him any woman ultimate desires is to have good sex. From the beginning of the play he thinks that all women are frittering with other men besides their husbands. He has a very similar attitude towards every woman, even his wife Emilia besides Desdemona. He suspects that his wife is double crossing him too with Moor, the main protagonist of the play.From the beginning of the play he describes Michael Cassio as “A fellow almost damned in a fair wife” – 1.1.21. By this he means that Cassio wife though she is a fair looking woman is cheating on him.
Iago is always using vulgar languages explicitly to describe man-woman relationship especially their mating. He describes, “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe” (1.1.91-92) as a words inform Brabantio what his daughter is doing now. In another line, he says, “your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.”(1.1.115).
Iago in general has no warm and loving feeling towards any person and his feeling turn even bitter when it comes to women. He is very selfish and self-centered manipulator who has not a single tint of humane emotions like love, kindness, sympathy, helpfulness etc. He is a combination of fox, jackal, wolf and goat- what it is called back in my native land. In the entire play he is using everybody as a tool to gain his vested interest and is loyal to none. He uses his friend Roderigo, his own wife Emilia, Cassio, Othello – everybody to quench his desire, lust and ambition. He thinks man who falls in love and try to scarify his life for love are worst than a monkey and prefer to be monkey than lose life for love,” I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.(1.3.309-10). For him all man who desire woman except for his cranial pleasure are fools and woman are nothing but flesh and bone that gives man a pleasure at bed and women themselves enjoy being like that. He is never willing to have any emotional relationship with a woman even to his wife. His attitude towards his wife is reflected in when he says, “She gives you so much of her lips As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, You will have enough.”(2.1.110-113).
However he is hundred percent cruelly rational and is precise as mathematical theory devoid of any emotions. He rationalizes that men should control his desires and lust and women are the great stimulator of this men’s weakness. Here he considers women as simply an amusing things as drink or drugs which give man certain pleasure. It is harmless to have some pleasure sometimes but is fatal to get addicted. Sometimes Iago often seems promoting some mythical ideas still popular on some part of the world as if women templates men desires which lead them to door of hell. So it’s better to stay away from them to attain spiritual salvation for man.” But we have reason to cool our raging emotions, our carnal strings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion.” (1.3.223-24) He furthers elaborates that love is nothing but an infatuation for carnival pleasures.
For Iago those who are honest are fools and those who appears to be honest but have their own hidden agendas in being honest “have some soul” (1.1.54). And he proudly confess to be a such one. “And such a one do I profess myself.”(1.1.55). He is not a person who goes to pay for the straight to salt but a one who is always looking for chances to back bounce his friends, masters and enemy alike. His ideas regarding reverence is best portrayed in lines, “Many a duteous ……..I follow myself(1.1.45-59)