"Iago, as Harold Goddard finely remarked, is always at war; he is a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality.......In Iago, what was the religion of war, when he worshiped Othello as its god, has now become the game of war, to be played everywhere except upon the battlefield."
--Harold Bloom
To respond to this passage, one should mostly focus on the shift from a religion to a game. How would you prove that this insightful comment is true? Of course, in order to prove this idea is true, do not fail to incorporate the excellent idea of "a moral pyromaniac" in this shift.
In my opinion, Iago's ability to manipulate those around him so well reminds me of the card game bullshit. In this game, players attempt to lay down all their cards in sucessive order, yet one must lie and lay down unsucessive cards because they often lack the abililty to play the ones that should come after the previous card. When Iago figures out that Othello has overlooked his creditials for the job Cassio recieved, he loses all sense of reality. He creates a world where he is control of everyone's thoughts and feelings through manipulation. And, in a sense, he becomes "a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality," because he burns away (much like a devil) the reality of peoples own feelings on the island of Cyprus. I feel like Harold Bloom got the idea on point becuase he incorporated Iago's blurring of reality and feelings while still refering to the ever-present motif of Iago embodying Satan himself in the play. Iago literally loses all sense of religon because of the game he wishes to play with everyone's heads in order to get back at Othello for self-motivated reasons.
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