S/LI/78. ‘Shakespeare has the disturbing power to solicit our complicity and sympathy with sentiments and personalities that are corrupting and vicious.’ Discuss

This paper discusses Shakespeare's ability to create complex multi-faceted characters, focusing mainly on his villainous types, namely Iago from 'Othello' and Shylock from 'The Merchant of Venice'. It also makes reference to Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Prospero from the 'Tempest' briefly. It explores how and why we as an audience sympathise with rather than abhor Shylock and Iago and furthermore illustrates our complicity in the sentiments they perpetrate such as vengeance and manipulation. In conclusion, Shakespeare's characters are truly human and so confuse and compound our own moral matrices.