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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: in the last act lends some colour to the correctness of Iago's
belief. If this belief be well-founded it must greatly modify
his character as a purely wanton and mischievous criminal, a
supreme villain, and lower correspondingly the character of
Othello as an honourable and high-minded man. If it be a morbid
suspicion, having no ground in fact, a mental obsession, then
Iago becomes abnormal and consequently more or less irre-
sponsible. But this suggestion of Emilia's faithlessness made in
the early part of the play is never followed up by the dramatist,
and the spectator is left in complete uncertainty as to whether
there be any truth or not in Iago's suspicion. If Othello has
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
