My favorite character in all of literature is Iago, the trickster antagonist of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello. He is charming, clever, quick-witted and so thoroughly evil that he was famously labeled a, “motiveless malignancy” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge…but I’m drawn to him.
It is precisely the fact that he’s a scheming, kinetic, yet reactive trickster that makes him compelling to me. He is the embodiment of so many admirable traits (intelligence, agency, wit, adaptability), all put to ill use. Who wouldn’t want to be those things? Of course, the tragic narrative requires him to eventually fail, but at the same time, I’m amused by the game he’s playing and secretly admire how his ingenious pivots and “hair-breadth ‘scapes” shine a light on his intellectual (if not moral) superiority. I’m amused by the game he’s playing and secretly admire how his ingenious pivots and “hair-breadth ‘scapes” shine a light on his intellectual (if not moral) superiority.
My son is currently reading the “Captain Underpants” series, and, as good fathers do, I’m reading with him. The 4th grade protagonists in this series, George and Harold, share many traits with Iago. They are disarmingly funny, clever, quick-witted, reactionary, sneaky, and subversive. They work toward noble ends using the same toolbox as Iago. In truth, they’re hard not to like precisely because I’d love to be as clever as they are. I recall that Junie B. Jones was similar (though I admit I didn’t identify as much), when my daughter was reading that series a few years ago.
Stretching back to my own childhood, I recall that I was drawn to Bugs Bunny, another trickster, on Saturday mornings. I cheered for Jerry Mouse. I never liked Roadrunner much, though. Even though the cartoons bore his name, he was really a just foil to that anti-trickster, Wile E. Coyote, an impotent failure of a creature who is the character we actually come to know in these vignettes. I like Wile E. too, probably because he’s a variation on a theme. Wile E. shares many of the traits of Iago and George and Harold, except that he perpetually fails, and comically. The comedy in his failure arises from the obvious deficiencies in his planning. His intellect is not equal to his schemes and he sets himself up to fail. In his failure we find humor.
So, what do I love in a character, both for myself and for my students. I want a character to be clever. I want a character to be a step ahead of his foes. I want a character to be both proactive, plotting a brilliant plan and reactive, able to improvise on the fly, outwitting his foes when they stumble upon his machinations. I admire these things in a person and I want to believe that they are the keys to success. Yes, in the end, Iago fails, but for four and a half of that 5 act play, he is the chess master, moving pieces around the board and reacting to the play of his nemesis deftly. If only his goody-two shoes wife had kept her mouth shut.