Iago Troubled Without a doubt the most evil character in the cast of Shakespeare's Othello is the cunning Iago. He spends his life, it seems, taking revenge on the general and destroying almost everyone around him. Helen Gardner in "Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune" elaborates on Iago's exact function and place in the play:. . . Iago ruins Othello by insinuating the question into his mind: "How do you know?" The tragic experience this play deals with is the loss of faith, and Iago is the instrument to bring Othello to this crisis of his being. His task is made possible by his being an ancient and trusted companion, while husband and wife are practically strangers, linked only by passion and faith; and by the fact that great joy disconcertes, leaving the heart inclined to doubt the reality of its joy. That which is strange and extraordinary, that which is heroic, that which is beyond nature, can be made to seem the unnatural, that which is unnatural. This is one of Iago's tricks. (143)Iago's very language reveals the level at which his evil mind operates. Francis Ferguson in "Two Worldviews Echo Each Other" describes the kinds of vile and repugnant images used by the antagonist Iago when he "slips off the mask" while awakening Brabantio: Iago is releasing the evil passion within him, as he does for a long time. at the time during the show, when he puts the mask aside. In these moments he always resorts to these images of bags of money, betrayal, lust and animal violence. Thus he expresses his unfaithful and envious spirit and, equally, his vision of the populous city of Venice – Iago's “world”, as it has been called. . . .(132)Iago is the “perfect” villain, in the sense that his type is exactly what… the paper medium is. “Two worldviews echo each other.” Readings on tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprinted from Shakespeare: The Pattern in His Carpet. Np: np, 1970.Gardner, Helen. "Othello: a tragedy of beauty and fortune." Readings on tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprinted from “The Noble Moor.” Lectures of the British Academy, n. 9, 1955.Shakespeare, William. Othello. In Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line n. 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.