The character from Othello who most readily draws out comparisons and contrasts to Holden Caulfield may be Iago, the play's scheming villain. At first glance the two seem completely dissimilar. Holden is essentially a good character with his own moral code, though he has a few weaknesses and vices. Iago, on the other hand, is determined to do evil to undeserving people purely out of spite. However, the insight Shakespeare gives us into Iago's mindset and his role as the catalyst for all action in the play make him a worthy character to discuss next to Holden Caulfield.
Holden's main motivation is to do good while Iago's main motivation is to do evil. Holden aspires to imitate the "catcher in the rye" from his fantasy about children running through a rye field towards a cliff. He values the innocence and safety of children and is furious when he discovers someone has written hurtful curse words on an elementary school wall. He is afraid children will read them and have their minds polluted by hate, and he goes as far as to try to erase them. Meanwhile, Iago wants to ruin Othello and drive him to murder, and he seems to realize that his obsession is irrational. He wants revenge for the mere idea that Othello has been "twixt his sheets" with Emilia, or in other words has slept with her, and the mere suspicion "will do as surety." Othello has passed Iago over for a promotion in favor of the less qualified Michael Cassio, which Iago recognizes as a normal occurrence in "the curse of service," military life. Even so, he wants Othello to pay for the insult with death and disgrace. In the same situation, Holden would probably withdraw in the way that he ran away from phony rewards for phony behavior at Pencey Prep.
As different as they are, Iago and Holden are the characters with the richest inner lives in these two stories. Holden narrates his whole novel, and the novel is more about his feelings and perceptions than it is about the events of the story. The reader constantly sees his attitudes towards school, sex, adult life, and children. In the same way, Iago is the one character in "Othello" who frequently speaks to the audience and describes the inner workings of his own mind as he makes his evil plans. We learn his feelings about underlings in service of their bosses, his perceptions of Othello's moral character as a husband (which he judges to be excellent), and his duplicitous inner dialogue. While he outwardly makes small talk and tells humorous rhymes, we can see that inside he is thinking about his revenge.
Iago is the force that drives the story. Without his plotting, Othello and Desdemona would live a boring, happy life together and there would be no play for us to watch. In the same way, Holden causes the action of "A Catcher in the Rye" by escaping Pencey Prep for an adventure in New York City. As different as they are, one good and one evil, these two characters are absolutely essential to the drama of their stories, and they are also the only ones who share the inner workings of their minds with us.
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