“THE JOKER IN THE PACK”.
“THE JOKER IN THE PACK”. Before the age of digital analysis, W.H. Auden had a view of the comic mechanisms which underlie the tragedy of Othello. In THE DYER’S HAND, he called Iago “The Joker in the Pack.” Auden acknowledges that one can’t call Othello a comedy, but that if it is a tragedy, “it is tragic in a peculiar way.” Auden recognizes how Iago is like a comic figure, with the difference that his goals are evil. He says: “When we first see Iago and Roderigo together, the situation is like that in a Ben Jonson comedy—a clever rascal is gulling a rich fool…” But, Auden observes, Iago’s goal is Roderigo’s moral corruption. Auden concludes that: “What Shakespeare gives us in Iago is a portrait of a practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind….”