Shakespeare’s tragedies are recognized to be enduring classics above and beyond even the most celebrated literature. Of them, Othello maybe has the strongest case for contemporary resonance. The themes of irrational enmity and racial hatred have certainly not dated it at all.
But the case for Othello doesn’t ring as solidly to me as Shakespeare’s other three top
tragedies: Hamlet, MacBeth, and King Lear. The main plot
is constrained and deterministic. Its characters are relatively few and mono-dimensional,
lacking for life. The comedic interludes are slight to the point of pointlessness.
While Shakespeare tragedies deliver a kind of catharsis amid the Act V tears,
here you get just bitter silence.
Subtitled The Moor Of Venice, Othello tells the story of a black commander of a Venetian army charged with protecting Cyprus from the Turkish army. Converted to Christianity, Othello is a widely-admired leader who still clashes with one Venice nobleman after Othello marries his daughter, Desdemona. “Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs,” [Act I, scene i, lines 129-131) is how Iago breaks the news to her father.
One thing to note right off is the way Othello begins. No prelude, no slow introduction to the people and their issues. We are informed right off in the first lines that this is a play about the seething hatred of a man by a supposed subordinate, no explanation given.
RODERIGO: Thou told’st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate.
IAGO: Despise me if I do not. [I, i, 7-9]
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| An 1891 chromolithograph depicting Othello being led on by Iago, his deceit mixed with sophistry: "There's millions now alive/That nightly lie in those unproper beds/Which they dare swear peculiar." [IV, i, 83-85] Image from https://www.etsy.com/hk-en/listing/524575962/othello-and-iago-1891-shakespeare |
As the play develops, we do get some clues as to what sparks Iago’s total dislike for Othello, though they vary depending on the scene and whom Iago is addressing. In essence, we have to accept at some level Iago is not acting from conscious reason, but more violent antipathy that makes him as much a victim as his prey. What makes Iago really dangerous, it turns out, is that he’s an utter maniac.
Which I do think limits the play. Richard III is also a manipulative Machiavel, but he operates with wit and self-preservation, which make his character more interesting. With Iago, he’s more of an endless riddle with no final answers. That makes him interesting, albeit limited, which gets to be an issue the more you realize Othello at some level is a one-character play.
I don’t really want to trash Othello. It is an intriguing, unique play for the set-up and the way Shakespeare develops it. Othello is never boring, though the character himself is frustratingly stupid in how he is constantly crossed up by Iago’s curveballs throughout. There is never a sense of an inner voice pulling him back from his irrational rages, which I kind of wanted and felt was needed.
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| Ultimately, the secret behind Iago may be no more than a desire to manipulate: "Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me/For making him egregiously an ass/And practicing upon his peace and quiet/Even to madness." [II, i, 330-333] Image from https://shays495pagedrive.car.blog/2020/04/05/blog-2-i-am-not-what-i-am-iago-from-shakespeares-othello/ |
In fact, even when he is being warm and supportive toward his beloved Desdemona, before Iago’s poisonous ministrations have their full effect, there is a demonic edge about Othello:
OTHELLO: Excellent wretch!
Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! And when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
[III, iii, 100-102]
If Othello is too irrational a character to sympathize with, Desdemona has a similar problem in the opposite direction. Her blind obedience and loyalty to her husband marks her as too much of a lamb being led to slaughter, rather than a real human being.
DESDEMONA:
My
love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns,—
Prithee, unpin me,—have grace and favor (in them.) [IV, iii, 20-22]
As a plot device selling the concept of Othello’s unreason, Desdemona does her job too well.
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| Othello confronts a sleeping Desdemona in her bed in the climactic scene of Othello. Interestingly, the illustrator chose to depict the Moor brandishing a dagger, when the instrument of his murderous assault is a pillow. "Down, strumpet!" he rages before he strikes. [V, ii, 99] Image from https://www.reddit.com/r/shakespeare/comments/1ilysxx/othello_and_desdemona/ |
There are things about Othello I really enjoy. My favorite character by a long shot is not Iago (too nasty) but rather Iago’s unfortunate wife, Emilia. Shakespeare must have enjoyed her, too; he gives her many of the play’s best lines.
In a play consumed even more than most Shakespeare plays by wifely infidelity (which is saying something), Emilia offers some lonely wisdom on the one-sided nature of this mentality:
EMILIA: But I do think it
is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps;
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite.
Why, we have galls; and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see, and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. [IV,
iii, 97-108]
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| Emilia sees a handkerchief left behind by Desdemona as the latter walks away with Othello, thus unknowingly setting into motion the ruin of both. "What should such a fool/Do with so good a wife?" [V, ii, 278-279] she asks after. Drawing by Ludovico Marchetti from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia_%28Othello%29#/media/File:Othello_(Ludovico_Marchetti)_04.jpg |
Emilia also seems at times the only person close to guessing what her husband is up to, enough to annoy him into trying to silence her. Though his intrigues seem largely undetectable for some reason, even though the cui bono of the play (Iago as a likely beneficiary from toppling both Othello and his chief lieutenant) seems beyond anyone’s vision.
What is Iago’s motive? His racist comments about Othello’s physical features and attractiveness to a white woman are early indicators that jibe with 21st century concerns, but an odd thing about Othello is how the character’s blackness is accepted as part of a positive package by most of the Venetian elite as well as Othello’s soldiers. He is given leadership responsibilities until his own ruination by Iago becomes clear.
The desire of Iago to advance himself by deep-sixing both Othello and his second-in-command Cassio carries more weight. We do see a profit motive in the way he leads on the doltish Roderigo, as Iago discloses near the play’s end. “Live Roderigo,/He calls me to a restitution large/Of gold and jewels that I bobbed from him.” [V, i, 15-17], but Iago’s final actions are consciously nihilistic to the point of suicide. There is no exit strategy for the guy, just total destruction of Othello.
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| Othello's historic depiction in films and on stage has become problematic on account of how often he was played by white actors in dark make-up, as was the case with Orson Welles in a well-regarded 1951 cinematic adaptation. Image from https://www.slashfilm.com/1178944/othello-was-a-maddening-film-for-orson-welles-to-make/ |
The most consistent take Iago presents is that Othello was rumored to have had sexual relations with Emilia before meeting Desdemona. But jealous possessiveness is not a fault one can tag Iago with, given his surly manner with his wife. Rather, it seems to further the theory of Iago’s hatred being wholly irrational and mad. The way he rationalizes the situation reads like a man unconvinced by his own case, rather just using it to fit his own end goal.
IAGO: I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets
’Has done my office. I know not if ’t be true,
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. [I, iii, 429-433]
One quality the play does have going for it is leanness. It not only begins in a quick burst of venom that gets straight to the point, but in just 15 scenes captures the rise and fall of both a heroic protagonist and his tormentor.
Still,
one can cut more from the play without losing its essence, a harder trick to be
sure with Hamlet or even Coriolanus. Guiseppe Verdi’s opera Otello
does away with the entire first act, opening with Act II, scene iii and a party
that turns into a drunken melee. That shows the play’s dramaturgic qualities,
but also its elemental bareness. Subplots aren’t a thing here.
A 1930 London staging of Othello shocked many by casting African-American actor Paul Robeson in the title role, here playing opposite Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona. Another black American, Ira Aldridge, played the same role in 1851. But authentically black Othellos were a rarity until the late 20th century.
Image from https://njdigitalhighway.org/lesson/paul_robeson/othello
That said, I do enjoy the brief window we get of the Venetian nobility, holding a late-night conference to discuss the Turkish invasion of their territories. It is here Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, bursts into their war council, having apparently ignored an earlier summons to attend, to demand the head of this presumptuous black man making off with his daughter. It is as close to real comedy as Othello gets.
When the Duke, a warm supporter of Othello especially when his seasoned leadership is critically needed, suggests Brabantio enjoy his new son-in-law rather than mourn his lost daughter, the reply is acidic:
DUKE: The robbed that
smiles steals something from the thief;
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
BRABANTIO: So let the Turk
of Cyprus us beguile,
We lose it not so long as we can smile. [I, iii, 238-242]
The middle acts, focused as they are around the collapse of Othello and Desdemona’s romance at the hands of Iago’s confident lever-pulling, is where the play feels more leaden and predetermined. It is never uninvolving, just rote in its presentation and outcome, which is less than one expects from the best of Shakespeare or even the very good.
In
the end, Othello’s brilliance is impossible to deny, even if its
greatness does not seem comparable to other works. It has a vitality, a wit, a
beauty of language that roll as easily as what exists in other Shakespeare
plays. What makes it most frustrating for me, Iago’s blank characterization, is
what makes it ageless to others. So be it.
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