Iago's duplicity in Act I, scene i, line 64 of Othello: "I am not what I am."

"Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.

In following him, I follow but myself.

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,

But seeming so, for my peculiar end,

For when my outward action doth demonstrate

The native act and figure of my heart

In complement extern, 'tis not long after

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws to peck at.  I am not what I am." (I, i, 64)

Here, Iago says that he serves Othello for himself, and that all masters are not honest or worthy, thereby granting himself the capacity to be dishonest.  He keeps himself attending on himself; though he is in service, he is all about what he can take from service, not what he can give.  There is a repetition of "the self," and he uses his words (ie. "heaven is my judge") as a means to an ends--an empty rhetoric because he is not committed to such a mode of ethics or morals.  Iago's facade asserts that he follows Othello for love and duty, yet this passage claims Iago's true agenda.  This speech calls attention to role-playing in metadrama, thus calling attention to itself as fiction, a kind of performativity of identity.