Thoughts on Othello 2

What was my initial reaction to the play?

My first reaction to the play was an interest in Iago's character. Desdemona seemed too virtuous to be of any interest and Othello seemed much too testosterone-fuelled. This interest in Iago led me to want to explore his character and discover what made him do those horrific deeds. It seemed obvious to me that despite Othello being the eponymous character, the play really belongs to Iago. He is the only character that does any soliloquies in the play and yet he is the least honest out of all of them.

 Desdemona and Othello, however, were a couple with worse communication skills than Romeo and Juliet. This sparked very little interest in their characters. Iago was full of himself and Desdemona was a virtuous little Christian girl. I immediately realised that they were unlikely to survive and that this play was most likely not about them.

 The first characters we are introduced to are Roderigo and Iago. it seemed very clear that Iago was the dominant figure in their friendship and Roderigo only really served as Iago's personal hunchback. I wasn't really interested in Roderigo because I figured that he wasn't a character that Iago was likely to explore in greater detail. The focus of the psychological side of this play, which is what makes it interesting, is Iago.

 What hypothesis did I come up with?

The hypothesis that I came up with from reading the play was that Iago is a high-functioning psychopath. This is because the aspect I was most eager to explore in the play was Iago's motive and the possibility that he had no motive at all. Psychopathy is a part of psychology that I have always had an interest in and this gave me an opportunity to explore it in the context of a fictional character.

What types of critical texts did I use?

I tried to find a range of sources from different time frames to make sure that I got several different perspectives. I used some critical texts from books that included Excerpts from essays on Othello. These books gave a very good overview of the different perspectives around the play. 

What did I do with those texts?

I took note of all of the parts of the text that was relevant to my hypothesis. Then I discussed the relevance of the source and its reliability. Then I put all of the sources, their relevance,  the excerpts, and a commentary of how they helped me with my hypothesis, into a table. 

What was important about this process?

This process allowed me to make sure that all of the texts that I used were both reliable and relevant to my hypothesis. It also allowed me to make sure that the texts I was analysing were the ones best suited to my hypothesis. This process also made it easier for me to get an overview of the different opinions around the character of Iago and how those opinions fit together. This was very important as I am trying to make a critical analysis that requires me to see both sides of an argument.

 What have I learned from these critical texts?

One of the most interesting things that I discovered from my critical texts was that none of them tried to argue that Iago had a motive, at least not in the traditional sense. I discovered that there was more than one way of interpreting the word motive. However, none of the critics I looked at tried to argue that Iago had any sort of motive, in the traditional sense. To me, this seemed at first like it was proving my hypothesis, but as I continued to look into it I discovered that this was not necessarily the case.

 In 'The Joker in the Pack,' W.H Auden discusses how Coleridge's statement of 'Motiveless Malignity' applies to Iago only if one looks at motive as being a positive goal that a person strives towards. However, he argues, that motive can also be a negative thing Yet the professional practical joker is certainly driven, like a gambler to his activity, 'but the drive is negative, a fear of lacking a concrete self, of being nobody.' This would apply to Iago's character in the play which made me start to doubt whether my hypothesis was accurate.

 Then I started to look into the psychological profile of a psychopath. This was somewhat difficult as there was a lot of inaccurate information to weed through. There were many articles with broad sweeping statements and no evidence or studies to back them up. However, there was one article about Arielle Baskin-Sommers who did a study with prison inmates and discovered that 'Psychopaths seem to have the ability consider the thoughts of others — only if there is a specific goal they want to accomplish.' This showed me that Iago could have a motive and still be a Psychopath which eradicated my earlier misconception about this fact.

 Some of the earlier critics I looked at came very close to diagnosing Iago as a Psychopath, however, at the time in which they wrote there weren't any clinical studies on Psychopaths. this meant that they did not have the wealth of knowledge that is currently available to us. Many of the characteristics pointed out by these critics are also traits of a Psychopath. The DSM-5 states one of the characteristics as being blame externalisation, which is essentially what Iago does at the end of the play when he insists that he did nothing and had no part to play. Another critic, Daniel Stempel, describes Iago as a Jesuitical Machiavel. one of the traits of a Psychopath is Machiavellian Egocentricity.

 I found myself agreeing with W.H. Auden on quite a few points, despite the fact that it did not reflect the viewpoints of many of my other sources. W.H. Auden's views clashed with those of Fred West, A.C. Bradley, and S.T. Coleridge. However, I could not find many other critics to support Auden's theory so I remained more convinced by the other side.

 How have these texts shaped my understanding of my hypothesis?

I already had a pretty good understanding of my hypothesis as I have done research on Psychopaths before and have been very interested in the subject. This meant that I already had a good basis of understanding as to what a psychopath looks like. The texts then helped me to apply this information to the behavior that Iago displays in the play and use this to make an evaluation about whether the term psychopath really applied. I wanted to focus on Iago's motive from the beginning of this unit and decided to write my hypothesis about the motive I found to be most likely. That is why I decided to make my hypothesis that Iago is a high-functioning psychopath. I also decided to include the word high-functioning, as Iago does seem to be incredibly intelligent and his plans are very well developed.

 Now, what do I need to do?

Now I need to take the information from task 4 along with the opinions I expressed in task 3 and this task, to make an informed decision about whether my hypothesis was correct or not. I have a range of sources and will choose the most relevant ones to use for task 6. I will discuss the opinions expressed in these sources and whether or not I agree. This will help me to make sure that I do not have any confirmation bias when making my final decision about the validity of my hypothesis.