Humanities 202
April 12, 1996
Othello, by William Shakespeare, is perhaps not
as exciting as a ravishingly sexy poster
of Laurence
Fishburne and Irene Jacob. Yet, with its
intoxicating mix of love, sexual passion
and the deadly
power of jealousy, Shakespeare has created an erotic thriller based on a human
emotion that
people are all familiar with. It all
depends on how those people receive it.
There is
an extraordinary
fusion of characters' with different passions in this tragedy. Every character is
motivated by a
different desire. Shakespeare mesmerizes
the reader by manipulating his
characters
abilities to perceive and discern what is happening in reality. It is this
misinterpretation
of reality that leads to the erroneous
perceptions that each character holds.
After reading this tragedy, the depth of
Shakespeare's characters continue to raise many
questions in the
minds of the reader. The way I percieve
the character of Othello and what
concerns me, is
that Othello is able to make such a quick transition from love to hate of
Desdemona. In Act
3, Scene 3, Othello states, "If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
I'll
not believe
't." (lines 294-295) Yet only a couple hundred lines later he says,
"I'll tear her to
pieces"
(line 447) and says that his mind will never change from the "tyrannous
hate" (line 464)
he now harbors.
Does Othello make the transition just because he is so successfully manipulated
by Iago? Or is
there something particular about his character which makes him make this quick
change? I believe that "jealousy" is too
simple of a term to describe Othello. I think that Othello's
rapid change from
love to hate for Desdemona is fostered partly by an inferiority complex. He
appears to be
insecure in his love for Desdemona (as well as in his position in Venetian
society).
Othello's race
and age ("Haply, for I am black . . . for I am declined into the vale of
years," 3.3.
279-282) and his
position as a soldier contribute to his feelings of inadequacy.
Othello admits to Desdemona that he doesn't
have "those soft parts of conversation"
possessed by
well-bred Venetian noblemen, those to which (as a senator's daughter) she has
become acclimated
(3.3.280-281). Othello's speech (1.3.130-172) also conveys his feeling that
Desdemona loves
him for his exploits and achievements rather than for his mind. Othello
apparently feels
a constant responsibility to prove to
Desdemona (through his heroic deeds) that
he is worthy of
her love.It is my opinion that Othello
is a man governed by a subconscious need
or impulse to
believe ideas rather than reason. In believing Iago's lie, Othello apparently
is
controlled by his
aforementioned inferiority complex -- his feeling that he just doesn't measure
up to (young,
suave, and of course, white) nobleman Michael Cassio in Desdemona's mind.
Othello is more
naturally predisposed to believe this "idea" rather than to engage in
rational
discourse in an
attempt to find the real logic of the situation.
It is also unclear weather or not the position
of soldier and that of husband can be
percieved as two
seperate role's. Yet the two seem inextricably
intertwined. Military operations
are Othello's
primary priority. Othello had been a soldier since he was seven years old
(" ...since
these arms of
mine had seven years' pith.....they have us'd/ Their dearest action in the
tented field"
1.3.83-85). So Othello was not a newcomer to the
battlefield. Yet, Othello encounters a
battlefield the
likes of which he has never seen when he marries Desdemona and enters Venetian
society -- the
rules are different, the enemy has more cunning, and words are used for
weapons.
Military service
and marriage are not incompatible -- Othello has the potential to make a
perfectly
suitable husband
(as well as lover) to Desdemona. Othello only self-destructs because he and his
inferiority
complex fall victim to the duplicitous and vengeful Iago on society's
battlefield.
Perhaps Othello's precipitous change from
ordered general to chaotic killer occurs
because he is
black. Africans were starting to appear in London at the time of Shakespeare
and
were viewed with
suspicion, to say the least. It is not inconceivable that Shakespeare exploited
this popular fear
of the nature of these black Africans and portrayed Othello as a vengeful
savage.
Is Othello a
noble minority with jealousy as his single fatal flaw, or is he an over-reacher
whose
pride causes his
ultimate downfall? I don't believe he is
truely either. He is an outsider who has
tried to believe
he has been fully integrated in a society he really knows only tolerates him.
He
could hardly
believe that Desdemona would love him from the beginning, and it actually makes
more sense to him
that she would love Casio than that she loves him. Iago plays on this
insecurity
by presenting his
lies as more believable than reality.
Othello's flaw is that he loves Desdemona
blindly and unrealistically. For that
reason,
Iago knows that
such a naive man as Othello who loves his wife in this way can be
corrupted. In
Act 2, Scene 3,
Iago speaks of Othello's relationship with Desdemona and joyously proclaims
that Othello's
"soul is so enfetter'd to her love/ That she my make, unmake, do what she
list,/
Even as her
appetite shall play the god/ With his weak function"(351-54). Iago is absolutely
determined to
pervert this man who has declared that he will deny his wife nothing. Iago is
certain that
Othello can be corrupted simply because of his idealistic love for Desdemona.
Othello's inclination to trust Iago is easily
perceived, as I have already noted (" The Moor
already changes
with my poison" (3.3.325). Iago
almost assumes here the role of a Frankenstein-
kind of doctor,
creating and delighting in the making of a monster. Readers hearts respond
greatly to the
final breakdown of Othello's once ordered existance as he desperately clings to
the
one thing that
seems certain to him: Iago's sincere friendship: "O brave Iago, honest and
just,/
Thou hast such
noble sense.."(5.1.31-32). In this
tragedy, Othello is torn by a terrible dilemma,
whether he can
trust his new bride or whether he can trust his ensign. Why does he choose to
trust the
latter? Time after time, Othello fails
to see through the machinations of Iago.
Othello
trusts too
easily. Iago is a military man; Othello
is used to dealing with men on the battlefield,
men whom he must
trust and, moreover, Iago has a well known reputation for honesty.
In order to disguise his deep disappointment
and conceal his plans for revenge, Iago
begins early in
the play to reinforce his image as an honest, loyal soldier. In Act 1, Scene 2, for
example, in a bit
of boasting, Iago says that " in the trade of war I have slain men,/Yet do
I hold it
very stuff o' th'
conscience/ To do no contrived murder. I
lack iniquity..."(1-3). This is an
outright lie, but
he has just come onstage with Othello, and he is saying this for his generals
benefit, posing
as the rough and ready, good hearted soldier.
In the same speech, he alludes to
having had the
opportunity to kill Roderigo, a man who has said evil things about Othello:
"Nine
or ten times/I'd
thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs"(4-5). Clearly to me, Iago is lying
about what he
would actullly have done, yet he wants to show that he is a loyal man of
action,
but one who would
not kill impulsively. This, he is sure,
will appeal to Othello, a professional
military
man. It is precisely this sort of
behavior which secures Iago's preputaion for cool,
controlled
honesty.
Othello needs to trust people; it is his
nature; that is why he suffers such terrible agony
when he must try
to choose between the alleged honesty of Iago and the honesty of
Desdemona.
Desperately,
Othello needs to trust his wife; in Act 3, Scene 3, he cries, "If she be
false, O then
heaven mocks itself!/
I'll not believe 't"(278-79). This
is overwhelming evidence that he does
need to believe
her, just as in many of his other speeches, there are similar, parallel
expressions
of his need to
believe Iago. Basically, one of the
first qualities that comes to mind when
assesssing a man
as complex as Othello is his openness, his trustfullness. Speaking of Iago,
Othello says that
Iago is a man of honesty and trust; "to his conveyance I assign my
wife"(1.3.286). Othello has no reason to distrust Iago at
this point; it is evident that he also
trusts his wife,
since he assigns her to the care of another man.
Later in the same act and scene, Barbantio
suggests that Desdemona deceived him and
may just as
easily decieve Othello, and Othello's reply is very significant: "My life
upon her
faith!"
(295). His faith in Desdemona is not
only dramatically important for the later, tragic
reversal, but
signigicant here because of its actuality.
He deeply loves and trusts his
young and
beautiful wife,
despite the fact that he is an aging man and might be expected, normally, to be
a
little suspicious
of , if not his wife, of other men, and he is not. In fact, Othello's "free and open
nature" is
the very reason that Othello is such an easy prey for Iago. Iago knows that Othello is,
by nature,
neither overly introspective nor overly interested in the motivations of
others.
This "innocence" of Othello, that is,
this simple directness of charcter that is so dominant
an element of his
personality is a perception which deserves more consideration. Particularly I
would note his
"inocence" early in the play, perhaps best evidenced in Act 1, Scene
3, when
Othello,
defending himself against Barbantio's ravings, says quitely and simply that he
is "rude"
(meaning "
unpolished," "simple," or "unsophisticated") in his
speech, and that he is not "bless'd
with the soft
phrase of peace"(82). Clearly, he
does not try to assume a pose that might seem
overly
impressive, it would be unnatural for a man such as Othello.
In addition to this play's being a tragedy of
multiple dimensions, it is also a love story.
The tale of a man
who loved excessively but "lov'd not wisely" (5.2.346). Numerous instances of
Othello's love
for Desdemona have been noted. I feel
that some these lines of poetic sensitivity
are being used by
Shakespeare to convey to the reader Othello's perception of love and faith in
Desdemona. In Act 2, Scene 1, Othello exaults, "O
my soul's joy!/If after every tempest come
such
calms..."(186-87). Here, he
evidences both the passion and potential violence of his love.
And, a few lines
latter he says, "If it were now to die,/ 'Twere now to be most
happy..."(191-92).
This speech is
beautiful and heartfelt and is clear-cut proof for the audience of his deep,
sincere
love for his
young bride. In addition, the speech
should be noted because of Shakespeare's
embellishing it
with the ironic overtones of death.
Finally, I must deal with Ohello's true flaws
and, of these, perhaps the most major
concern is the
fact that he is able to deceive himself:
Othello believes he is a man who judges by
the facts. In the past, this may have been true, but
after Iago has infected him with a jealousy that
overpowers all
reason, Othello is doomed. Even when
Iago made his initial overtures suggesting
Desdemona's
infidelity, Othello was firmly convinced that he was not a man to be
self-deceived.
Im Act 3, Scene
3, Othello says, "I'll see before I'll doubt; when I doubt, prove;/ And on
the proof,
there is no more
but this,/ Away at once with love or jealousy!" (190-92). Othello will find,
tragically, that
it is not as easy as he thinks to make a choice between love and jealousy.
Desdemona is a complicated character On the one
hand she is a strong minded, tough
young woman who
decides to marry a man who's a lot older, and black. And she loves him
genuinely and
passionately.On the other hand she seems very weak and rather soft, why doesn't
she stand up to
Othello ? She is the ever-present
representation of all that Othello has attained as
a civilized and
Christian man; in attaining her, he attains the heights from which the tragedy
requires that he
must fall. Othello's love for Desdemona
continues and creates ever-new
deceptions until
the final climactic murder is accomplished.
And even as he kills Desdemona,
after he has
decided that she must die, he deceives himself that he is killing her as a
duty, as it
were, not as
revenge. In his words, he kills her
"else she'll betray more men" (5.2.6). Evem at the
end, he does not
realize his true motivation for the murder of the women he loves.
I should add that Iago's plot to make Othello
jealous (and thus murderous, and thus
destroy himself)
is surprisingly easy, in part because Iago is a master manipulater, and in part
because Othello
finds him easy to believe (He was so thrilled she loved him he could hardly
believe it). The
plot is filled out by the fact that Iago also wants to destroy his rival for
promotion,
Cassio, so he makes him part of the lie; and that Iago has been exploiting
Roderigo
by pretending to
help him, so he involves him in the plotting.
The excessive vulgarity of Iago's
can be found
throughout the play, beginning as early as Act 1, Scene 1, when he urges
Roderigo
to inflame
Desdemona's father with hatred for Othello.
"Make after him," he says, meaning
Barbantio,
"poison his delight, Proclaim him in the streets. Incense her kinsmen,/ And, though
he in a fertile
climate dwell,/ Plaque him with flies" (68-71).
This is harsh language, indicating a openness
to only evil emotions. Yet, to his
general,
to Othello,
Iago's venomous language is even worse.
Exciting Othello's imagination, he says in
the
"temptation scene" words that are highly effective: "Would you,....behold her topp'd?"
(395-
96). He asks Othello to envision the handsome
Cassio charming Othello's young bride.
In this
entire scene,
Iago knows, instinctively, the kind of remark that eill inrcrease Othello's
suspicion
without giving
the impression that he wishes to do so.
Yet, when all is said and done, Iago fascinates
me. And perhaps this is true because
great
evil can somehow
manipulate and captivate my attention.
This is certainly, a tribute to
Shakespeares
genius that despite everything evil which Iago accomplishes, the playwright
never
lets the reader
forget that Iago is a human being, not an abstraction. Iago's jealousy is similar to
jealousies the
readers have had, except that he is wildly jealous; his passion is ours, except
that
he is immoral,
ruthless, and savage. Finally, Othello
is black and middle aged.Desdemona is
white, young and
beautiful. The state of Venice needs
Othello- but they don't like him.Iago
needs Othello and
that is why Iago hates him. So, with
every character holding individual
motivations and
desires. Shakespeare has created his
own reality, which can simply be percieved
as extraordinary.
Work Cited
Alexander, Peter.
Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.
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