William Shakespeare’s Othello is a story of the tragic consequences of pride and belief put into the wrong people. It appears that even though the whole deviant scheme was Iago’s doing, eventually, it is the actions of this possessory and skeptical husband that seal the faith of both participants in their disastrous marital experiment. Despite the fact that all of the catastrophic events are the result of his lack of faith in his wife, his strengths and flaws are not easily weighed, as he elicits in readers both a feeling of anger at his erroneous choices, as well as respect and sympathy. In Othello, the protagonist is a tragic hero in the guise of a racial outsider, motivated to blend in through the use of his military accomplishments and the exotic quality of storytelling, but in the end, being surrounded by people who urge him to refrain from believing Desdemona and thus, put his trust into the wrong hands, his jealousy and susceptibility overpowers him, leading to heartrending corollaries.
There most certainly exists a racist sentiment within the play, but it is to an important degree, confined to the characters of Iago, Roderigo and Brabantio (Orkin 168). Iago, for instance, tells Brabantio that “an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe,” where these oppositions of black and white play an important role in distinguishing between the blackness of Othello and the whiteness of Desdemona (Shakespeare I.i.88-89). His blackness remains a thorn in the eye of other characters, who despite all evidence to the contrary, endeavor to believe that Desdemona could never truly love a man such as Othello, because it goes against all natural laws. For instance, on confessing that he has murdered his beloved wife, Emilia professes that in her death, Desdemona is even more of an angel than she used to be during her mortal life, while Othello is even more of a devil for taking her life. She is the angel and he is the devil, and the two can never meet for union of love. He is far too different from her and thus, as such, he allows himself to be far too easily swayed into adopting these beliefs that everyone keeps saying behind his back.
However, Desdemona is blind to such petty difference based on human race. She sees him for who he is, not what he looks like on the outside. She does not really see him, but hears him and thus, loves him (Howard and O’Connor 152). He dazzles and charms everyone around him, especially Desdemona and even her father, though Brabantio allows himself later on, to be persuaded into regressing into the state of racial segregation, where he believes that it is alright to have Othello as his friend and as a guest in his home, but it is far from acceptable to have him as a son-in-law. Thus, everyone appears to be enjoying the stories Othello unfolds before them, stories of lands far away, he himself resembling a magical storyteller who uses the threads of his story telling abilities to captivate his audience into believing his every word.
While his stories encompass wild adventures with monsters and different wonders seen only in the most dangerous places in the world, an impression arises of him being an indispensable part of the world of those stories; as if it takes a monster to defeat a monster and the adventure-hungry Venetians were at Othello’s feet, lost in the marvelous stories. This is exactly how he manages to charm the young and beautiful Desdemona, who falls madly in love with him and remains true to the very end. Though some critics would deem her a stereotypical female character, weak and submissive to the male authority in her life, first the father and subsequently, her husband, she is far more rounded a character than it seems at first glance. She disobeys her father for her future husband, and shows her conviction in her speech:
My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband,
And so much duty as my mother show’d
So much I challenge that I may profess
Othello does not possess the power to perceive how fortunate he is in finding such a wife, but will allow himself to be blinded by these very same words, when Iago tells him that for Othello, she betrayed her father, and thus, he can only expect the same treatment, that is, she is bound to betray him for someone else. Othello can be accused of believing a false friend such as Iago, but not of believing his wife’s father. Still, her impulsive disobeying of her father was merely a onetime event, the cause of which was love, pure and simple, and she chose her husband over her father, as it should be. Tragically enough, Desdemona remains faithful and devoted to her husband, which will eventually seal her fate by the hand of her madly jealous husband.
The fact that Othello is a soldier is a key notion in his gaining reputation in the Venetian society and acquiring the fair Desdemona as his wife. As it was mentioned, he relied on his tales of adventures and far away wonders to woo her, however, the mere fact that he managed to marry her, does mean that his married life will continue smoothly from then on. On the contrary, his military career will prove to be a burden to his marital life, because he gets orders to return to Cyprus and naturally, as it is expected, his wife is to accompany him. Well aware that his beautiful wife is used to far better accommodation that the one he can afford while there, at this point, he realizes the sacrifice she is undergoing, all in order to be with him. Referring to her as his “fair warrior,” he thrives having her by his side (Shakespeare II.i.179).
Conversely, the isolation in Cyprus proves to be a deciding factor in the successive events, as the characters are moved from the busy metropolis of Venice into this island where forces of nature reign. Here is where the animalistic side of Iago and Othello will surface, creating a violent storm of events. Consequently, once his extraordinary military powers can be put to little use, due to the fact that the Turks no longer present a threat, feelings of uneasiness start to rise in Othello as he can no longer exemplify his physical might and readiness anywhere, except in a private setting, something his is not used to. The fact that he murders Desdemona in their marriage bed, serves a potent symbol of “a violated marriage bed” (Neill 384). The poor innocent woman dies not because she actually tainted their marriage bed, but simply because she was accused of doing so. As his identity as a marital lover begins to fall apart, Othello is desperate to retain the image of a powerful masculine image, that of a soldier who is afraid of nothing, all in order to neglect and forget the uneasiness he feels in his marital bed, but eventually is forced to say goodbye to his former identity:
Farewell the plum’d troops and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ear piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! (Shakespeare III.iii.353-359)
This monologue serves as a perfect portrayal of the kind of life Othello has been used to, but is now forced to say goodbye to. His primary identity is that of a soldier and once it is taken away from him, he feels lost and disoriented, resulting in subsequent uneasiness in all other aspects of his life. Him being a proud and brave soldier is also one of the reasons why he appears to attractive to the readers. He is not a weak-minded simpleton, but rather a man who is being especially sent for and is glorified for his military successes in a country of people racially and culturally different from his. These aspects of his personality make the reader sympathize with him all the more, despite the fact that he is the one whose blindness and lack of faith in his spouse create a maelstrom of death.
In the last moments before his death, Othello remains unchanged. He is even more of an outsider than in the beginning of the drama, and he has managed to shun away and eventually murder the one person who was innocent in this whole bloody affair. With the strength of her last, dying breath, Desdemona manages to utter words of forgiveness and shifts the blame onto herself for the physical and verbal abuse endured by the jealous husband. In the end, Othello really does turn out to be a tragic monster, not the black ram or the Barbary horse, but the green-eyed monster of jealousy that has consumed everyone within its path of destruction, and turned him from a well-respected and brave soldier, into a lover of weak character and even weaker impulses.
Works Cited:
Howard, Jean E., and Marion F. O’Connor. Shakespeare Reproduced. Oxon: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Neill, Michael. “Unproper Beds: Race, Adultery, and the Hideous in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly 40.4 (1989): 383-412. Print.
Orkin, Martin. “Othello and the ‘Plain face’ of Racism.” Shakespeare Quarterly 38.2 (1987): 166-188. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. New ed. New York: Washington Square Press, 1993. Print.
