But what is clear is that Iago is keenly sensitive to anything that touches his pride or self-esteem.  It would be most unjust to call him vain, but he has a high opinion of himself and a great contempt for others.  He is quite aware of his superiority to them in certain respects; and he either disbelieves in or despises the qualities in which they are superior to him.  Whatever disturbs or wounds his sense of superiority irritates him at once; and in that sense he is highly competitive.  This is why the appointment of Cassio provokes him.  This is why Cassio’s scientific attainments provoke him.  This is the reason of his jealousy of Emilia.  He does not care for his wife; but the fear of another man’s getting the better of him, and exposing him to pity or derision as an unfortunate husband, is wormwood to him; and as he is sure that no woman is virtuous at heart, this fear is ever with him.  For much the same reason he has a spite against goodness in men (for it is characteristic that he is less blind to its existence in men, the stronger, than in women, the weaker).  He has a spite against it, not from any love of evil for evil’s sake, but partly because it annoys his intellect as a stupidity; partly (though he hardly knows this) because it weakens his satisfaction with himself, and disturbs his faith that egoism is the right and proper thing; partly because, the world being such a fool, goodness is popular and prospers.  But he, a man ten times as able as Cassio or even Othello, does not greatly prosper.  Somehow, for all the stupidity of these open and generous people, they get on better than the ‘fellow of some soul’ And this, though he is not particularly eager to get on, wounds his pride.  Goodness therefore annoys him.  He is always ready to scoff at it, and would like to strike at it.  In ordinary circumstances these feelings of irritation are not vivid in Iago—­no feeling is so—­but they are constantly present.

4

Our task of analysis is not finished; but we are now in a position to consider the rise of Iago’s tragedy.  Why did he act as we see him acting in the play?  What is the answer to that appeal of Othello’s: 

     Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
     Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?

This question Why? is the question about Iago, just as the question Why did Hamlet delay? is the question about Hamlet.  Iago refused to answer it; but I will venture to say that he could not have answered it, any more than Hamlet could tell why he delayed.  But Shakespeare knew the answer, and if these characters are great creations and not blunders we ought to be able to find it too.