“But men are men, the best sometimes forget. / Though Cassio did some little wrong to him, / As men in rage strike those that wish them best, / Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received / From him that fled some strange indignity / Which patience could not pass” (Othello, Act 2, Scene 3, lines 256-261).
In this part of the play, Iago said the quoted lines following the stabbing that occurred between Cassio and Montano. I highlighted this part of the play because I believe this is where Iago gets really cunning. Iago’s plan is quite apparent from the start of the play. He makes his plans and intentions to ruin Othello quite clear. I had my doubts as to how he would actually go about executing his plans, and whether or not they would go successfully. It seemed like things were actually not going in Iago’s favor after it was revealed to everyone that Othello had Desdemona’s consent in marriage (act 1). However, at this point in the book I felt that it became quite possible for everything to go in Iago’s favor. The reason being is that before, he had the skeleton of his plans but there wasn’t anything concrete because his plan had not been put into motion yet. It’s only after the stabbing of Montano that Iago really able to do anything. Here, Iago tries to appear as if he’s only trying to do good by being on Cassio’s side. By doing so, Othello believes that Iago has only good intentions in trying to help him and is only refraining from saying anything offensive towards Cassio in an effort to protect him. I thought that this was really clever of Iago and it’s impressive that he is able to pull this off without anyone’s notice. This is Othello’s first mistake and from here it only gets worse for him. It’s from here that Iago is able to get close to Othello and insinuate the thoughts of Desdemona cheating on him for Cassio.
