How Does Iago Use Language In Hamlet

In Elizabethan and Jacobean society, people depended on surprises in highly theatrical entertainment. The playhouses hosted popular theatre performances without stage-sets or props. Unlike today’s modern theatre, the simple ‘stage allowed for swift, fluid action and a concentration on language’. The Jacobean stage would have bought the colours of ‘language’ to life. For example, A vice figure like Iago would use exaggerated words and gestures to stress his strong feeling of antagonism towards Othello. Likewise, a melancholic Hamlet would experiment with words in an overstated manner (to show his conflicted state of mind). The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (Act I, Scene I) and Hamlet (Act III, Scene IIII) directs the plays to there catastrophic endings. However, the language portrays the relationship between characters in different ways. In Othello, Iago exploits the power of language to manipulate his “family” and “friends” and make them puppets for his revenge
However, he uses a persuasive approach that is different to Iago’s. In comparison to Iago’s spontaneous dialogue, Hamlet’s language is more meaningful because it carries the weight of truth. He does not talk figuratively, but uses simple and indisputable facts: ‘A murderer and a villain […] That from a shelf the precious diadem stole and put it in his pocket’. This approach is more likely to disturb the audience because it is full of Hamlet’s fanatical truth. The antagonist of the play (Claudius) is described as ‘A murderer and a villain’ who usurped the Kings position and ‘put it in his pocket’. Unlike Iago’s vulgar language (that is only useful in influencing Roderigo) Hamlet’s use of imagery is effective in persuading the audience, himself, and Queen Gertrude that his rage and revenge is actually permissible. This is because Hamlets revenge is bound with the facts of reality and not with treacherous