Othello: Roderigo in-Depth Character Analysis

Roderigo is a Venetian is a rejected suitor of Desdemona. His desire for Desdemona’s love is very strong in which it leads him to turn evil. He becomes Iago's follower, he wounds and becomes wounded by Cassio in an unsuccessful attempt to murder the lieutenant, and later he is killed by Iago.
Roderigo is identified as easy to be manipulated. Roderigo is gullible; he believes everything Iago tells him and does everything Iago tells him to do. At the beginning of the play, Roderigo alerts Brabantio, under Iago’s command, about Desdemona eloping with the Moor. He sails with Iago to Cyprus and later serves as a pawn in Iago's plan to ruin Othello and Cassios’ lives. At the instruction of Iago, Roderigo starts a fight with Cassio while Iago sits back and watches during the general celebration. Later, he attacks Cassio in the dark and wounds him, while Cassio manages to wound Roderigo back. Iago has tricked Roderigo into giving him all his money in an attempt to negotiate with Desdemona and thinks the tasks Iago assigns to Roderigo are intended only to remove Cassio as a possible rival toward Desdemona. Although his actions are cruel and evil, he does display a measure of sympathy in the way that he is so easily manipulated and ultimately betrayed by Iago, who later stabs the wounded Roderigo in the dark in order to hide his involvement in Cassio’s assault.
Roderigo is continually threatening to quit his pursuit of Desdemona and stop giving Iago money for his intervention in that matter. Each time he does so, Iago assures him that Desdemona's attraction to Othello is only physical and that she will tire of the Moor fairly quickly. Iago suggests that Roderigo's best course of action is to accumulate a solid financial foundation. Iago tells Roderigo over and over to "Put money in thy purse" (341-360), implying that, when Desdemona has satisfied her sexual lust, she will be attracted to the rich and stable sort of man. At one point, in his frustration at not realizing his goal, Roderigo says, "It is silliness to live, when to live is torment" (.308). He apologizes for being so silly but says he does not have the "virtue" to change, to which Iago responds, "Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves we are thus or thus" (320). Iago maintains that men make of themselves what they desire to be; men do not follow a course predetermined by any inner qualities. Iago's advice seems to renew Roderigo's resolve even as his threatened suicide gives evidence to the intensity of his longing for Desdemona.

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