Perhaps the most sinister of all the characters ever created by the Bard of Avon is in his tragedy Othello. It is Iago, the cause of everyone's problems in the show. We focus a strong light on his character in this essay. David Bevington in William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies enlightens us on the ancient: Iago's machinations yield him both “sport” and “profit” (1.3.387); that is, he enjoys his wickedness, although he is also driven by a motive. This inhuman Deputy-like behavior creates an uneasy sense of a dark metaphysical reality that lies behind his visible exterior. Even the stated reasons don't always make sense. When in an outburst of hatred he soliloquies that “I hate the Moor; / And abroad it is thought that between my sheets / I have done my errand," Iago continues, admitting the improbability of this accusation. [. . .] The accusation is so absurd, in fact, that we must look to Iago himself the origin of this jealous paranoia. (223)And looking for the cause within Iago can give the answer that the ancient is psychologically sick. In Shakespeare's Four Giants Blanche Coles comments on the mental illness that seems to afflict the despicable Iago:When critical d 'other times as HN Hudson, who wrote almost a hundred years ago, saw that Iago was not acting out of revenge, one is more than surprised to find modern critics, who have had the advantage of the progress made in the study of abnormal psychology, accepting Iago for everything except what he is, and what Shakespeare intended him to be: a psychopathic personality. (79)Evidence of his psychopathic personality is seen at the beginning of the play. He manipulates the wealthy Roderigo to awaken Senator Brabantio (“Wake him up: m...... middle of paper ...... deserves for himself the full punishment of the law - administered, surprisingly, by his arch-enemy Michael Cassius, the new “lord governor”: “To you, lord governor , / Remains the censure of this infernal villain, / Time, place, torture, oh impose it!” The audience complains that Othello did not heed his original assessment of the ancient at the beginning of the “temptation scene” : “There is some monster in his thoughts too horrible to be shown.” WORKS CITED Bevington, David, ed. Coles, Blanche. Shakespeare's Four Giants, New Hampshire: Richard Smith Publisher, 1957. Shakespeare, William In The Electric Princeton University /othello/othello_all.html No line nn.