The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

But, in most cases, behind the joker's contempt for others lies something else, a feeling of self-insufficiency, of a self lacking in authentic feelings and desires of its own. The normal human being may have a fantastic notion of himself, but he believes in it; he thinks he knows who he is and what he wants so that he demands recognition by others of the value he puts upon himself and must inform others of what he de­sires if they are to satisfy them.

But the self of the practical joker is unrelated to his joke. He manipulates others but, when he finally reveals his identity, his victims leam nothing about his nature, only something about their own; they know how it was possible for them to be deceived but not why he chose to deceive them. The only answer that any practical joker can give to the question: "Why did you do this?" is Iago's: "Demand me nothing. What you know, you know."

In fooling others, it cannot be said that the practical joker satisfies any concrete desire of his nature; he has only demon­strated the weaknesses of others and all he can now do, once he has revealed his existence, is to bow and retire from the stage. He is only related to others, that is, so long as they are unaware of his existence; once they are made aware of it, he cannot fool them again, and the relation is broken off.

The practical joker despises his victims, but at the same time he envies them because their desires, however childish and mistaken, are real to them, whereas he has no desire which he can call his own. His goal, to make game of others, makes his existence absolutely dependent upon theirs; when he is alone, he is a nullity. Iago's self-description, I am not what I am, is correct and the negation of the Divine I am that I am. If the word motive is given its normal meaning of a positive purpose of the self like sex, money, glory, etc., then the prac­tical joker is without motive. Yet the professional practical joker is certainly driven, like a gambler, to his activity, but the drive is negative, a fear of lacking a concrete self, of being nobody. In any practical joker to whom playing such jokes is a passion, there is always an element of malice, a projection of his self-hatred onto others, and in the ultimate case of the absolute practical joker, this is projected onto all created things. Iago's statement, "I am not what I am," is given its proper explanation in the Credo which Boito wrote for him in his libretto for Verdi's opera.

Credo in un Dio crudel che m'ha creato

Simile a se, e che nell'ira io nomo.

Drill vilta d'un germe e d'un atomo

Vile son nato,

Son scellerato

Perche son uomo:

E sento il fango originario in me

E credo I'uom gioco d'iniqua sorte

Dal germe della culla

Al verme dell'avel.

Vien dopo tanto irrision la Morte

E poi? La Morte e il Nulla.

Equally applicable to Iago is Valery's "Ebauche d'un serpent." The serpent speaks to God the Creator thus

O Vanitel Cause Premiere Celui qui regne dans les Cieux D'une voix qui jut la lumiere

Ouvrit I'univers spacieux. Comme las de son pur spectacle Dieu lui-meme a rompu Vohstacle De sa parfaite eternite; 11 se fit Celui qui dissipe En consequences son Principe, En etoiles son Unite.

And of himself thus

Je suis Celui qui modifie

the ideal motto, surely, for Iago's coat of arms.

Since the ultimate goal of Iago is nothingness, he must not only destroy others, but himself as well. Once Othello and Desdemona are dead his "occupation's gone."