Othello


Exam Techniques


Using Othello as a Comparative Text: The Cultural Context


Cassio conducts a ‘private and domestic quarrel’ in a ‘town of war’. The ensign, Iago, is the rough- speaking non-commissioned officer who carries the flag into the field, ‘I must show out a flag’. This requires bravery and loyalty because he identifies the location of the army on the battlefield. The ensign must maintain that position in the face of possible death. Iago is bitter because he has been passed over for advancement by Othello even though the Moor has ‘seen the proof’ of his military ability.


The army culture of the time was defined by honour and status. Iago is a seasoned and ambitious soldier, so it is strange that Othello promoted the inexperienced Cassio who ‘never set a squadron in the field’. As a result, Iago decides to be deliberately disloyal, ‘I follow him to serve my turn upon him’.


A patriarchal society


In the play’s ‘macho’ society, men are dominant and controlling. They make the decisions for the family. Fathers often choose their daughters’ future husbands, usually men of equal or higher social and economic rank to maintain the family’s status. Brabantio had already refused Roderigo, ‘I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors’. Women are subordinate and expected to be subservient.


But Desdemona has challenged societal norms because she ‘shunned/ The wealthy curled darlings of our nation’. Iago, the cynical misogynist, criticises her behaviour as ‘one may smell in such a will most rank’. A man was expected to ask the father’s permission before courting his daughter, yet Othello and Desdemona elope. Brabantio is appalled that his daughter has chosen to ‘fall in love with what she feared to look on’.


Desdemona’s assertive character is seen when she demands to accompany her husband on his tour of duty to Cyprus rather than be ‘left behind,/ A moth of peace’. However, Desdemona soon reverts to society’s expectations when she defers to her husband. After Othello abuses and strikes her in public, she leaves submissively, ‘I will not stay to offend you’. Later, she instructs Emilia to lay her wedding sheets on her bed in an attempt to reconcile relations with her angry husband. She even exonerates him of her murder and dies murmuring, ‘Commend me to my kind lord’.


Emilia is more assertive and provides a 234


contrasting picture of womanhood. She is a worldly-wise servant who criticises society’s double standard of expected social behaviour, ‘have not we affections,/ Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?’ When she learns of Iago’s guilt, she is not afraid to call him out publicly, ‘’Tis proper I obey him, but not now’. Emilia dares to ‘speak’ to defend her young mistress’s reputation. She accuses her husband of telling ‘an odious, damned lie’ for saying Desdemona was unfaithful. In the end, Iago fatally stabs her. Assertive women were seen as a threat to the social order in Elizabethan times. Yet Shakespeare dares to challenge the traditional role of women.


Outsiders


For much of the play, Othello is referred to as ‘The Moor’. In the early 17th century, this term was used for non-whites, usually of North African descent. The hostile Iago gives us the conventional attitude describing Othello as a barbarous, foolish outsider who did not understand the subtle ways


If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me In one of those same sheets


Desdemona Act 4 Scene 3, l.25–6


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