(34) Othello

Othello is an excellent play, a masterful exposé on love, race, jealousy, and total betrayal. In this play, Othello, a powerful Moorish general, marries the beautiful and innocent Desdemona, a nobleman’s daughter, who loves him (as he does her). Iago, the penultimate dastardly villain, despises Othello (everybody?) and decides to ruin him by convincing him that Desdemona has been unfaithful. Tragically, he succeeds.

The character Iago in this play is an evil paragon. A great Shakespearean villain, he’s a real jerk, right from the start, plotting and planning to take down Othello (who of course totally trusts him) in the harshest way possible. Innately evil, his motivations seem to spring not from the typical justifications for bad behavior we have seen before in Shakespeare (say, justice, or honor), but from some other, way darker place. Indeed, the reasons he gives for his evil plotting is bitterness over being skipped for a promotion and a totally unsubstantiated suspicion that Othello is banging his wife, Emilia. These are hardly reasonable excuses to wantonly lie, cheat, steal, and kill.

Iago is the fountainhead for most of the action of this play, relentlessly driving theme, character, and plot. It’s a juggling act par excellence, a literary bob and weave, and it’s quite fun to follow, Iago as ringmaster, all the way to the end. And speaking of the end, I loved how Shakespeare exits this great character by having him take a total vow of silence after his villainy is exposed (“Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word.”). No more words, Iago’s main weapon removed, but by his own choice (last laugh?). Perfect.

And what about the handkerchief! Sheesh! Shakespeare makes quite a big deal out of this thing. It is a key prop, maybe the most central prop of any Shakespeare play, and it seems to signify and punctuate most of the action of the later acts, both directly and indirectly (rather than describe it all here, take a look at this page. It does a good job of describing its prevalence and significance). Highly valued by Othello, it is given as a treasured gift to Desdemona, who loses it in a roundabout way to Iago (uh oh), who in turn skillfully plans to plant it on another man, also in a roundabout way (don’t you just love Shakespeare?!), all to prove Desdemona’s infidelity.

Othello absolutely loses his mind over this handkerchief, torturing himself and others about it at every turn. When he discovers it as missing he takes it as irrefutable evidence of Desdemona’s adultery, and this “evidence” eventually pushes him over the edge. He keeps mentioning it, over and over, throughout the latter parts of the play, variously and in multiple contexts, as tangible proof and testament of his cunning, cuckolding wife (Which she isn't. In fact, she’s pretty much the opposite. Almost over-the-top sweet and innocent, all the way to the end). It’s the king of all props, this handkerchief, and Shakespeare works it perfectly, passing it around (and also passing a copy of it around for good measure…again, don’t you just love this guy?!) throughout the play, so that it becomes a sort of floating, common touchpoint, a thematic home base. Trust me, the dude gets a ton of mileage out of this little piece of cloth. Analyzing and puzzling through its role in Othello has surely been the basis for many a doctoral dissertation.

Anyway, there it is, the second to last tragedy on my list. Only Coriolanus remains in that genre, then it's on to a few more Romances and I’m through. I plan on sprinting to the finish here, with a number of live performances (Cymbeline, Othello, and The Tempest) in the queue as well as some other stuff. Stay tuned, I plan to finish strong.