The Evil Character of OthelloWilliam Shakespeare's Othello offers the audience a full measure or dose of evil, primarily in the person of the sinister Iago, whose evil influence seeps into the lives of the victims around him.In The Riverside Shakespeare Frank Kermode explains the kind of evil peculiar to the ancient: Over the ancient figure of Vice – a familiar form for abstract evil – Iago wears the garb of a modern devil. Iago's naturalist ethic, as expounded to Roderigo at the end of Act I, is Montaigne's evil version, an example of the way in which men convert the precepts of common sense supported by no act of faith to evil. (1200)The images of the drama also have their evil aspect. Kenneth Muir, in the Introduction to William Shakespeare: Othello, explains the examples of diabolical imagery in the play in relation to the infection of the Moor by the ancients: The same transference from Iago to Othello may be observed in what SL Bethell called diabolical . Images. He estimated that of the 64 images relating to hell and damnation - many of them are allusions rather than actual images - Iago has 18 and Othello 26. But 14 of Iago's are used in the first two Acts and 25 of Othello's in the last Three. . The theme of hell originates in Iago and is transferred to Othello only when Iago has managed to infect the Moor with his jealousy. (22)In his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, AC Bradley provides an in-depth analysis of the type of evil that the ancients personify:Iago is supreme among Shakespeare's evil characters because the greatest intensity and subtlety of imagination have gone to the its doing, and why...... middle of paper......yet another. Introduction. William Shakespeare: Othello. New York: Penguin Books, 1968.Shakespeare, William. Othello. In Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No lines nos.Wayne, Valerie. "Historical Differences: Misogyny and Othello." The question of difference: materialist feminist criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Wilson, H. S. on the design of Shakespearean tragedy. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1957. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. “The Engaging Qualities of Othello.” Readings on tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from the Introduction to the Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. NP: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.