Using Othello as a Comparative Text: Theme or Issue


stereotypes. Although Othello is originally depicted as a black outcast, old and uncivilised, he tries to resist, ‘For she had eyes, and chose me’. But Iago plays on Othello’s insecurity as a naive outsider in this white society, ‘In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks/ They dare not show their husbands’.


The ensign also reminds Othello of Desdemona’s deception of ‘her father, marrying you’. As the lies and doubts continue, Iago soon begins to take Desdemona’s place in Othello’s mind. Act 4 Scene 1 marks a turning point. Overcome by jealousy, the Moor collapses in an epileptic fit, which Iago contemptuously dismisses as a ‘passion most unsuiting such a man’. Othello is now ‘bound’ to Iago forever. His desire to banish uncertainty outweighs his regard for Desdemona. He has destroyed not only his wife but also his peace of mind, ‘Farewell the tranquil mind!’


Othello’s downfall is a direct result of his dependency on Iago. He blindly accepts the ensign’s flimsy story of Cassio’s guilt based on a dubious account of a dream and the incriminating ‘evidence’ of the handkerchief. Othello now sees himself as an agent of justice and swears a ‘sacred vow’ with Iago to bring ‘swift means of death’ to his supposedly adulterous wife. He is pleased at the ‘justice’ of strangling her in ‘the bed she hath contaminated’. The Moor has reverted to his heathen side.


A scorned wife


Desdemona’s relationship with Othello raises many questions. She is portrayed as a character who lacks self-awareness. Idealistic and romantic, Desdemona ‘saw Othello’s visage in his mind’. She forsakes all for love, ‘my soul and fortunes consecrate’ and believes so completely in her image of Othello as an exotic, courageous hero that when his behaviour towards her changes, she attributes this to his administrative concerns as Cypris’s governor. Desdemona tactlessly persists in pleading on Cassio’s behalf despite her husband’s obvious displeasure, ‘leave me but a little to myself’.


Shortly after Desdemona is viciously struck on the face by her enraged husband, she timidly leaves so as not to ‘offend’ him. When he accuses her of being ‘that cunning whore of Venice’, she instructs Emilia to lay her wedding sheets on her bed. She also refuses to accept Emilia’s cynical advice that


Othello


husbands should ‘use us well’. Desdemona dies exonerating her husband from blame for her own murder, totally deluded by the romantic picture in which she has so heavily invested. The audience is left wondering if Desdemona and Othello ever really knew each other.


Self-knowledge


Othello’s reasons for loving Desdemona and his hasty elopement suggest a man who is infatuated rather than in love. He admits that he loved her because she admired his bravery in battle and ‘did pity’ the dangers he had endured. But their relationship is never stable. At times Othello is clearly obsessed by her, ‘when I love thee not,/ Chaos is come again’. Towards the end of the play, he sees himself as an arbiter of justice, killing his wife ‘else she’ll betray more men’. He continues to fool himself that he is ‘merciful’ by killing her when she revives.


Othello reaches his lowest point of self-delusion when he tries to excuse himself of his wife’s murder by claiming ‘You heard her say herself, it was not I’. When Emilia reveals Desdemona’s innocence, he begins to realise what he has done and how he has damned himself by this unjust murder, ‘That look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven’. He feels dishonoured, ‘why should honour outlive honesty?/ Let it all go’. The Moor’s tendency towards self-dramatisation remains right up to his suicide. Has he redeemed himself in Venetian society’s eyes?


The inter-racial relationship between Othello and Desdemona was troubled from the outset. The Moor struggled to be a husband to a wealthy white Venetian woman. Othello was confident and successful as a military leader and found it difficult to relate to people away from the battlefield. He is such a poor judge of character that Iago has little trouble exploiting Othello’s insecurities about love and marriage.


Audiences continue to speculate about Othello’s relationship with Desdemona. Has he damned himself to eternal hell by committing an act of despair? The play’s characters also disagree about Othello. Gratiano regards his epitaph as ‘marred’ and questionable while Cassio pronounces him ‘great of heart’. Through his creation of the ‘noble Moor’ Shakespeare has presented a complex study of the devastating consequences for a person and others when self-knowledge is lacking.


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