Program Essay for "Othello"
Cruel Manipulation and Senseless Agony
by Thomas Canfield
Othello is traditionally classified with Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth as one of Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies. Yet this play also presents some unique paradoxes and puzzling contradictions. Iago is Shakespeare’s most notorious villain, while Othello is the only hero in these four celebrated tragedies who is inexplicably undeserving of the fate that befalls him. Othello’s high-minded resolve and sublime purity of heart sets him apart from the other three great tragic heroes with their shortcomings and innate character defects. He has none of Hamlet’s indecision, Lear’s rash arrogance and pride, or Macbeth’s “vaulting ambition.”
Othello’s tragic flaw is that he is noble to a fault–and this Achilles’ heel becomes the instrument of his undoing. By exploiting the great man’s blind inability to conceive of evildoing for its own sake, Iago triggers Othello’s psychological degeneration and brings about his ultimate downfall As Iago’s venomous hatred poisons Othello’s mind, his victim spirals into a tortured state of mental corruption, inward anguish and self destruction. In the scope and breadth of the play’s seemingly irrational course of events, its plot more closely resembles a classical tragedy than do the stories surrounding the playwright’s three other tragic heroes.
Essentially, Othello is a study in abnormal psychology. The obscure and twisted impulses that Iago plants and nurtures in Othello’s brain reveal a calculating, single-minded determination on the part of the villain. He initiates–and perpetuates–a malevolent chain of circumstances that inexorably leads to the play’s tragic conclusion. Iago becomes so obsessed with furthering his treachery that he exhibits a blind disregard for the obvious fact that he will, inevitably, destroy himself in the process. Although Shakespeare hints at several possible motives for Iago’s Machiavellian machinations, there is no sufficient explanation for his actions. Once he is unmasked and his crimes are revealed, the villain refuses to furnish a justification for his deeds. Attempting to identify a clear rationale for Iago’s wickedness is an exercise in futility, an endeavor that Samuel Taylor Coleridge termed “the motive-hunting of motive-less Malignity.”
Iago and Othello complement each other as polar opposites. Even so, it is a persistent matter of debate as to which role is the focal point of the performance. Othello is the title character and the object of the tragedy, yet Iago’s clever plotting has often been designated as the play’s dominant thrust. Certainly Iago’s role is larger: he is afforded a total of eight soliloquies in contrast to Othello’s three, and he speaks more lines throughout the play. Yet once the final act unfolds, the audience is left with the irresistible question of whether the sensational dramatic impact arises from the two-faced, malicious envy of Iago or the intense jealousy and passionate suffering of Othello.
This is a conundrum that cannot be resolved. The two characters are symbiotically dependent upon each another to make the tragedy function, and their stories are inextricably bound together by the enigmatic senselessness of it all. Without the tangled web of deceit that Iago weaves in order to groundlessly persecute Othello, his victim’s torment–and our heightened reaction to its sheer insensibility–would never transpire. Iago may have a more substantial role, but it is Othello who undergoes a tremendous emotional metamorphosis that involves a sweeping range of psychological extremes. Over the course of the play, he is transformed from a confident, dignified and respected military commander into a weak, irrational and obsessive husband who is the epitome of jealousy, the “green-eyed monster.” As the dread of cuckoldry takes hold of his disturbed state of mind, the once-great general becomes a wretched victim of his own misled imagination. We see him anew as an unstable, self-absorbed creature who suffers from seizures and resorts to eavesdropping and behind-the-scenes plotting.
Because Iago’s master plan is to effect Othello’s ruination, he views all the characters who are victims of his lies and betrayal along the way–Cassio, Roderigo, Emilia, and even the unfortunate Desdemona–as collateral damage. They are mere tools to be employed to achieve Iago’s desired results. Yet the play’s outcome also is the result of a strange series of events that that are not solely the result of his efforts. There are repeated instances when his entire plot comes dangerously close to collapsing, illustrating that mere blind chance has a hand in favoring the intrigue that Iago so maliciously engineers. Shakespeare, as always, allowed for the incomprehensible interplay of uncontrollable fate and human free will in the affairs of mortal beings.
