Iago and Equivocation: The Seduction and Damnation of Othello

This essay tackles the equivocations of the scheming, devilish villain, Iago. The seductive capabilities of equivocation in Macbeth have been a familiar mine for critical exploration, but, as this article proposes, Iago’s equivocal mode of address offers similar possibilities. Iago equivocates with both dissimulations and ambiguities: in language that is perceptibly incomplete, he undoes Othello with the suggestion that what appears to be true is actually false. Connecting poststructuralist theory and pre-Reformation apocalyptic imagery, this essay explains Othello's tragedy - and Iago's success - as one that depends on the gap between truth and language in a world that awaits the arrival of final, unequivocal Judgement as depicted by medieval iconography.