Othello - The Play on the Page by Bob Papsdorf

The Stranger

Shakespeare is both a moral writer and a psychological writer. As a moral writer, he presents a world where good and evil are meaningful concepts. As a psychological writer, he shows how moral qualities shape, and are shaped by, the thoughts and actions of his characters.

 

The origin of evil is a difficult problem. Why does Cain slay Abel? What is to be gained by inflicting suffering on others? The purest evil is that with the least logical cause, whose effects make the idea of a cause seem absurd. In Othello, Shakespeare seems to be trying to isolate and identify some of the ingredients that make great evil possible. Othello is the story of a shocking and terrible crime. We recognize that this crime is the work of great evil precisely because it is so unnecessary and pointless.

 

Othello is a military leader, a general, and his nemesis is one Iago, a high-ranking staff officer. Othello doesn’t know that Iago is determined to destroy him, and this is an advantage that Iago recognizes and uses. Iago is disaffected because he has been passed over for promotion. It is hard to understand how such an unremarkable professional setback can engender such pitiless animosity. Critic Harold Bloom shrewdly surmises that Iago may be a soldier who cannot endure peace, a killer who must invent a personal war when he lacks formal sanction to apply his talent for destruction. He hates Othello the way an arsonist hates a great building of fine old timber. Indeed, Iago’s frequent claims of how he hates “the Moor” typically turn to strategic appraisals of his opportunity:

Iago: I hate the Moor
And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets
He’s done my office. I know not if’t be true,
But I for mere suspicion in that kind
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
The better shall my purpose work on him
……
The Moor is of a free and open nature
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose
As asses are

(1.3.385-390; 398-401)

When Iago says “it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets/He’s done my office,” he’s suggesting that Othello has been sleeping with his (Iago’s) wife. So he’s adding a personal motive to his professional one, trying to stoke his rage. But even in Act 1, the audience has no trouble recognizing the absurdity of Iago’s suspicion. Does Iago destroy because he hates, or does he hate to justify his need to destroy?

 

Iago recognizes that he can destroy Othello by making him jealous, without having seen any evidence of this trait in his superior. What is it that Iago sees—what makes Othello susceptible? Is it that Othello is an insecure foreigner who lacks an intuitive understanding of the ways of sophisticated Italians like Cassio and Desdemona? Or is it that his career has never allowed him a private life of close-up intimacy and trust?

 

As an audience, we might say that the root of Othello’s susceptibility is that he doesn’t comprehend anything that doesn’t happen right in front of him onstage. This is true in a metaphorical way for the reasons stated above. But it is true even in a literal sense. If he were having conversations with Cassio or Desdemona when he wasn’t onstage, Othello would have his own estimate of their personalities, know something of their tastes and inclinations. He might be able to see what the audience so easily sees—that there is no improper affection between them.

 

Iago controls Othello because he controls the stage; Othello is vulnerable to Iago because he cannot escape the stage that Iago manages so deftly. Iago smoothly controls the exits and entrances of the various characters, making sure that his victim never has an opportunity to verify his claims. Iago even manages to rouse Othello from his wedding chamber to settle the dispute between Cassio and Montano in Act 2. We know that Iago does this in order to discredit Cassio in front of his commander. But at the same time Iago manages to interrupt a rare moment of intimacy between Othello and Desdemona, thus weakening the bond between them and ultimately making Othello just a little bit more susceptible to Iago’s slander.

 

Stagecraft is a form of control, and Iago demonstrates an uncanny mastery of stagecraft. He shares the magician’s strict control of perspective and mastery of props, even going so far as to use one of the magician’s characteristic props—the handkerchief. And he also possesses some of the skills of the puppeteer, for he sees the otherwise invisible strings that allow him to manipulate Othello.

 

Iago is skillful, but the deck is decidedly stacked in his favor. Shakespeare has favored him with an airtight and claustrophobic environment, where there is neither space nor time for Othello to learn or reflect. If we pay attention to the sequence of events, we find that less than two days elapse from when the principals arrive on Cyprus, at the beginning of Act 2, to the end of the play. This is an impossibly short time for all of the events depicted. Shakespeare deliberately contrasts this “short time” by having characters describe actions occurring over an extended period: Desdemona and Cassio are said to have “…the act of shame/A thousand times committed” (5.2.209-210); Iago’s wife claims he has asked her to steal Desdemona’s handkerchief “a hundred times” (3.3.296). The two time schemes cannot be reconciled—this discrepancy, known as “double time,” has been noted and discussed by numerous critics. It has the effect of subtly disrupting perspective and continuity, thereby letting the audience feel a bit of the disorientation that Othello feels.

 

As we watch this very moral play, we can imagine what it might be like to be Othello’s jurors. Can we find Othello guilty when the odds are stacked so steeply against him? Strong arguments can be made on either side of the matter. Iago’s guilt is not in question. But the crime would not be possible without both Othello and Iago, lock and key, match and kindling. Iago is the center of the circle, the schemer who speaks his mind to the audience. Othello himself is as elusive as Iago is precise, an enigma. A stranger to all and even to himself.