Zender, Karl. F. "The Humiliation of Iago." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 34, no. 2, 1994, pp. 323-39, www.jstor.org/stable/450904.
The author's argument focuses on the power of language, specifically affection and affectionate fluency. In Othello, characters such as Othello and Desdemona would constantly elicit lines of affection despite being mired in despair. For Iago, lines of endearment were antithetical to him and his plans; lines of affection come from the heart and are authentic. Iago communicates(ed) to control and manipulate, almost nothing about him was warm, affectionate, or authentic.
The humiliation of Iago arises from Desdemona inadvertently speaking affectionately to him about women.
Desdemona: What wouldst write of me, if thou shouldst / praise me?
Iago: O, gentle lady, do not put me to't, / For I am nothing if not critical. (2.1.117-119)
Again, Desdemona coyly challenges Iago with being affectionate.
Desdemona: Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
Iago: I am about it, but indeed my invention / Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze: It plucks out brains and all. (2.1.124-7)
The one thing Iago struggled with was intimacy and affection and Desdemona stymied him. The author asserts that Iago's humiliation derived from his inability to counter affection, with his own "affectionate dialogue" (it wasn't in Iago), specifically from Desdemona, and to "silence" others through his own tongue and manipulation. "Desdemona's request that Iago praise women thus exposes a limit on his capacity to simulate love…" (Zender 331). Zender further argues that that was why Iago took a more aggressive and upfront position with Othello when discussing the manner of Desdemona's murder.
Othello: Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not / expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide / my mind again. This night, Iago.
Iago: Do it not with poison. Strangle her in her bed, / even the bed she hath contaminated. (4.1.198-202)
Zender intimates that part of the reason Iago suggests Desdemona should be "strangled" is to shut her up entirely in a symbolic act of silencing Desdemona's voice--and her ability to effect affectionate fluency,--in order for the effect of his (Iago's) voice to remain the dominant, controlling one
--David Kase
