Othello


Character Studies Emilia


Š Emilia is married to Iago and serves as a personal maid to Desdemona. Older and more worldly than her mistress, she develops a close relationship with Desdemona during the course of the story. Despite their different social backgrounds, they have much in common, particularly their troubled marriages. While both women are eager to please their military husbands, Emilia is much more spirited. She responds to Iago’s vulgar criticisms of Venetian women with the sarcastic comment, ‘You shall not write my praise’.


Š Shakespeare’s characterisation of Emilia creates an interesting comparison with Desdemona. Her cynical views on married life with Iago contrast with Desdemona’s more romantic idealism. Discussing the subject of married men, Emilia says, ‘They … eat us hungerly, and when they are full/ They belch us’. It is evident that she has an unsatisfactory relationship with Iago, who rarely shows her any genuine affection. Yet she remains loyal to him until she discovers the true extent of his treachery.


I have a thing for you


Emilia Act 3 Scene 3, l.333


Š Emilia desperately desires some appreciation from her husband, openly admitting, ‘I nothing but to please his fantasy’. But she remains disappointed, even when she presents Iago with Desdemona’s special handkerchief. He snatches it from her, saying ‘Go, leave me’. Later on, it seems as though Emilia has been considering Iago’s hunger for power and wishes she could gratify it – even if it meant cheating on him with another man. At one stage, she asks her mistress, ‘who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch?’


Š As Desdemona’s attendant, her one dishonest act of stealing the handkerchief turns out to have devastating consequences. This is what ultimately convinces Othello that Desdemona is guilty of infidelity, and so Emilia’s seemingly harmless theft contributes greatly to the play’s tragic outcome.


Š Throughout the second half of the drama, Emilia plays a more significant role by supporting the increasingly submissive Desdemona. She repeatedly defends her mistress’s honour, vowing to lay down her own soul ‘to wager she is honest’. Although she is deceived by Iago, Emilia comes close to understanding Othello’s obsessive jealousy, and suspects that ‘The Moor’s abused by some most villainous knave’.


Š In the end, she eventually exposes her husband’s evil and verifies Desdemona’s innocence: ‘she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor’. Emilia’s condemnation of Othello (‘such a fool’) is likely to echo the views of most audiences. However, although her dying words appear to reflect her basic honesty (‘So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true’), Emilia herself feels guilty that she was unaware of Iago’s evil behaviour for so long: ‘I think: I smell it: O villainy!/ I thought so then – I’ll kill myself for grief’.


Š There is no denying Emilia’s sense of outrage when she finally confronts Othello and defies Iago. Whether or not she can be taken altogether seriously as a reliable judge of character is less certain. Yet she is essentially loyal to her mistress and sacrifices her own life


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