ABSTRACT
Because Othello cannot not see that Iago's diffidence is a conscious pose, he innocently urges him to reveal the secret that Iago pretends is too terrible to disclose but also too painful to contain. Pleading with Iago to share what is on his mind with complete honesty, Othello exhorts him to give his "worst of thoughts the worst of words." He thus, unwittingly, entangles himself in Iago's masquerade and falls victim to his friend's duplicity (Shakespeare, 1604). The fact is, however, that, even when a person is not being consciously two-faced, speaking with complete affective honesty in a human relationship is not possible because we all contain parts, each doing its own job, that are relatively unknown to one another at any given moment. That is to say, it is not possible for anyone to obliterate all motives other than candor; honesty 129is always modified by various other aspects of self and self-interest even in the absence of conscious duplicity such as Iago's.
