The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

This reaction might be expected if Othello and Desdemona were a pair like Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra whose love was an all-absorbing Tristan-Isolde kind of passion, but Shakespeare takes care to inform us that it was not.

When Othello asks leave to take Desdemona with him to Cyprus, he stresses the spiritual element in his love.

I therefore beg it not To please the palate of my appetite Nor to comply with heat, the young affects In me defunct, and proper satisfaction, But to be free and bounteous of her mind.

Though the imagery in which he expresses his jealously is sexual—what other kind of images could he use?—Othello's marriage is important to him less as a sexual relationship than as a symbol of being loved and accepted as a person, a brother in the Venetian community. The monster in his own mind too hideous to be shown is the fear he has so far repressed that he is only valued for his social usefulness to the City. But for his occupation, he would be treated as a black barbarian.

The overcredulous, overgood-natured character which, as Iago tells us, Othello had always displayed is a telltale symp­tom. He had had to be overcredulous in order to compensate for his repressed suspicions. Both in his happiness at the be­ginning of the play and in his cosmic despair later, Othello re­minds one more of Timon of Athens than of Leontes.

Since what really matters to Othello is that Desdemona should love him as the person he really is, Iago has only to get him to suspect that she does not, to release the repressed fears and resentments of a lifetime, and the question of what she has done or not done is irrelevant.

Iago treats Othello as an analyst treats a patient except that, of course, his intention is to kill not to cure. Everything he says is designed to bring to Othello's consciousness what he has already guessed is there. Accordingly, he has no need to tell lies. Even his speech, "I lay with Cassio lately," can be a truth­ful account of something which actually happened: from what we know of Cassio, he might very well have such a dream as Iago reports. Even when he has worked Othello up to a degree of passion where he would risk nothing by telling a direct lie, his answer is equivocal and its interpretation is left to Othello.

othello

: What hath he said?

iago: Faith that he did—I know not what he did.

othello: But what?

iago: Lie—

othello: With her?

iago: With her, on her, what you will.

Nobody can offer Leontes absolute proof that his jealousy is baseless; similarly, as Iago is careful to point out, Othello can have no proof that Desdemona really is the person she seems to be.

Iago makes his first decisive impression when, speaking as a Venetian with firsthand knowledge of civilian life, he draws attention to Desdemona's hoodwinking of her father.

iago

: I would not have your free and noble nature

Out of self-bounty be abused, look to't: I know our country disposition well: In Venice they do let God see the pranks They dare not show their husbands: their best conscience

Is not to leave undone but keep unknown. Dost thou say so?

She did deceive her father, marrying you: And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks,

She loved them most.

And so she did.

Why, go to then. She that so young could give out such a seeming

To seal her father's eyes up, close as oak. He thought 'twas witchcraft.

And a few lines later, he refers direcdy to the color difference.

Not to affect many proposed matches, Of her own clime, complexion and degree, Whereto we see in all things nature tends, Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank, Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural. But pardon me: I do not in position Distinctly speak of her, though I may fear Her will, recoiling to her better judgment May fall to match you with her country-forms, And happily repent.

othello:

iago:

othello:

iago:

Once Othello allows himself to suspect that Desdemona may not be the person she seems, she cannot allay the suspicion by speaking the truth but she can appear to confirm it by telling alie. Hence the catastrophic effect when she denies having lost the handkerchief.

If Othello cannot trust her, then he can trust nobody and nothing, and precisely what she has done is not important. In the scene where he pretends that the Castle is a brothel of which Emilia is the Madam, he accuses Desdemona, not of adultery with Cassio, but of nameless orgies.

desdemona: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed¹?

othello: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book Made to write whore on. What committed¹? Committed. O thou public commoner, I should make very forges of my cheeks That would to cinders burn up modestly Did I but speak thy deeds.

And, as Mr. Eliot has pointed out, in his farewell speech his thoughts are not on Desdemona at all but upon his relation to Venice, and he ends by identifying himself with another out­sider, the Moslem Turk who beat a Venetian and traduced the state.