“There’s room at the top they are telling you still/ But first you must learn to smile as you kill/ If you want to be like the folks on the hill”
These words, attributed to John Lennon in his 1970 song “Working Class Hero”, seem not to paint the picture of a hero (as the song’s title suggests) but are – ironically – characteristic of a villain. For, surely, a hero, a celebrated member of society, would not take pleasure in the killing of his fellow man; it would be entirely unthinkable. Heroes are paradigms of moral justice, as is demonstrated by their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. Perhaps, then, Lennon’s song speaks of the suffering of the working-class; forced to subscribe to a regime of brutality and cruelty in order to ascend the social hierarchy. To escape those strictures that bind them to poverty, desperation, and submission.
I was never satisfied with Coleridge’s depiction of Iago as a ‘motiveless malignant’ posed to me in my Year Twelve English classes on Shakespeare’s Othello. It seemed a front for excusing the antagonist’s behaviours, and lacking any illustration of those exterior forces that compel individuals to desert their moral competence. Thus, instead of confronting the evil that might possess a man to commit similar atrocities, he naively declares that the man must be the manifestation of the evil himself. An otherworldly force, or ghost-like figure, content on seeing that his machinations disrupt the lives of the human-kind around him.
Although it is true that Shakespeare often flirted with the supernatural, (see the witches in Macbeth or the faeries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) there is no explicit revelation of Iago’s being such. We must only take him to be a man, the same as his (arguably) more morally sound counterparts. Coleridge is wrong. Iago does have a motive, a force that compels him to enact and construct such machinations to the detriment of Venetian society. What, then, are these illusive motives?
I posit that there is only one solution. Iago is a member of that same working-class group described by Lennon. He is an individual forced to participate in a social regime sculpted to exploit the anguish of being inferior to those above him. Except, unlike the former Beatle’s ‘working-class hero’, it appears that through the course of Iago’s plight to rise from his proletariat position, the antagonist must not only “learn to smile as [he] kill[s]”. What he truly learns is to ‘kill as he smiles’. To use unsavoury means to punish and undermine those structures which sought to keep him as lesser than those high-ranking Venetians he is subject to.
However, one must not confuse my interpretation of Iago for a justification of his actions. Nor are my words taken to be a ‘defence’ of his character, though somewhat contrary to the initial commission for this article. I merely intend to participate in the discussion surrounding what might have catalysed the events of the play. As mentioned previously, this piece is an expression of my distaste for Coleridge’s ‘motiveless malignity’. It is a rebellion against the usual ideas thrown at English students when studying Othello for A-Level. Instead, I see Iago as a working class character, his motives rooted in the working-class struggle so mentioned by Lennon.
The first sign pointing towards Iago’s lesser socio-economic status is his ability to empathise with Othello to the extent that the protagonist considers him his trusted assistant and, arguably, a ‘friend’. Othello’s use of the epithet ‘honest’ when referring to the antagonist throughout the play; his granting Iago stewardship of his wife (A1, S3); and the eventual pledge of allegiance the pair both assent to at the height of Iago’s manipulation in Act Three, Scene Three all point towards the friendship between Iago and his commander. It is obvious that Iago’s dastardly machinations would not have succeeded if not for Othello’s paramount belief in the villain’s faithfulness.
The justification for Othello’s immense trust in the antagonist is left to be established. Why might he have entrusted Desdemona to Iago’s care when, considering the protagonist’s dissent into barbaric anger from the play’s climax, it is obvious that he is capable of intense jealousy?
I pose that the underlying basis for the implicit relationship between Othello and Iago is a joint experience of being the ‘other’ in this microcosm of Venetian society: Othello, isolated for his race, and Iago, in his position as a lower-ranking member of the Venetian army and, by extension, society. This would explain the immense trust Othello thrusts upon Iago. Perhaps the characters were able to empathise with each other’s plight considering that they are both ostracised and subject to discrimination in their society. This would make Othello’s decision to award Cassio the position of lieutenant a more impactful betrayal from the perspective of Iago and, therefore, provides a defining (and somewhat justified) motivation for Iago’s feelings of anguish.
Although not explicitly stated in the text, there is an implication that Cassio is undeserving of the role granted to him by Othello and instead earns the position not by merit, but something more. This ‘something more’ may be attributed to his class. Shakespeare depicts Cassio as a member of the upper-class of Venetian society, evidenced by the fact that he seems to be familiar with the highest ranking character in the play (the Duke). Coupled with Iago’s assertion that Cassio is merely “a great arithmetician” (A1, S1) and so is not suited to the role (as he believes himself to be) there seems a suggestion that Othello’s decision to promote Cassio was not based in his military prowess. If we are to take Iago’s opinion of Cassio as the truth (keeping in mind that he is the play’s antagonist), then it is clear that this society operates similarly to our own, as one predicated on an unfair class hierarchy. Iago is therefore subject to unfair treatment in his being passed over for a position which he harbours all the relevant experience for, by a good friend who he assumed understood how it felt to be treated in this way. That would surely leave a rotten taste in one’s mouth.
The idea that Othello and Iago share a strong friendship is certainly a respectable idea, or at least is founded in the text. Othello’s relationship with Desdemona outrightly suggests this. Desdemona is first attracted to her husband due to his openness with sharing stories of his lived experience with slavery and war: “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them” (A1, S3). Shakespeare (ironically) makes it apparent that the marriage of Othello and Desdemona is one which predicates on the willingness of two individuals to understand the respective circumstances, insecurities and desires of the other as a woman and an ethnically ambiguous man in a white, patriarchal community. Is it then unreasonable to believe that Othello and Iago’s relationship is founded on a similar openness?
In fact, this might be proved further by reference to the fact that Iago and Desdemona are the only characters in the play that describe themselves expressly as Othello’s inferiors by calling him their “lord” (Iago calls Othello this in A3, S3). Even Cassio, Othello’s lieutenant and most important underling, does not.
Further, there are more explicit references to Iago’s lack of monetary standing. This is notable in his relationship with Roderigo, who the antagonist openly exploits as a means to fund his machinations; this is under the guise that he is to use that money for the sole purpose of gaining Desdemona’s hand. Iago’s frequent demands that Roderigo “put money in thy purse” (A1, S3) and, generally, the intensity with which he requests Roderigo’s funds suggests his lack of financial stability – going hand in hand with his lower social status.
Moreover, it is worth noting that Iago’s wife, Emilia, is Desdemona’s servant – tending to her needs and every request; automatically suggesting the existence of a class hierarchy between the women. If Emilia is openly recognised as socially inferior to Desdemona, then it is logical to assume that Iago himself is Othello’s subordinate, not purely in the military context but in a social one too.
Another example of Iago’s being a working-class character manifests through his knowledge of the then-contemporary drinking songs, which were typically known, and sung, by the English labouring classes in the sixteenth century (A2, S3). Although this was likely Shakespeare’s attempt to excite his audience and involve them in the contents of the play, there might be a greater truth implied here. The playwright’s attempt to include his audience into the sphere of the play could indicate his intention to illustrate Iago’s broader connection to them in relation to their similar class status. This is especially poignant when one considers that the Elizabethan era saw the experience of play-going become more widely accessible to the common people. Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre accommodated lower class patrons by means of charging one penny to stand in the ‘Pit’.
Coupled with his frequent use of colloquial profanities (‘zounds’), the fact that Iago addresses the audience in his soliloquies and asides, and his changing from prose to verse in the communication of his thoughts in the aforementioned asides, it is evident that Iago considers the audience to be complicit in his machinations. This may suggest that Shakespeare intended the patrons most proximate to the stage (those standing in the ‘Pit’) to feel as if they could relate to the struggles that Iago details – being passed over for a promotion, for example. Iago is demonstrated to have, and make use of, knowledge and information which either (i) would not have been privy to him were he not a member of a lower-ranked class, or (ii) that he would not have been able to freely express were he subject to the same expectations that his higher-ranked counterparts are (the need to maintain an air of ‘sophistication’).
It is clear, then, that there is solid ground for interpreting Iago as a working-class character. It may provide a solution to the question Coleridge attempted (and failed) to answer – does Iago have a motive? In fact, if one is to take this interpretation further, one might come to the realisation that Shakespeare’s class commentary is just as pessimistic as Lennon’s.
Though, instead of highlighting the struggles of the ‘working-class hero’ as the ex-Beatle does, Shakespeare’s Iago (and his unfavourable end) may serve as a cautionary tale for those same common people inhabiting the Pit. Should one dare to challenge the social order, for want of something more than those strictures that restrict them, they shall reap severe consequences. They will be deemed a ‘working class villain’.