Lecture 11 OTHELLO THE MOOR OF VENICE

Critical focus and Overview of Act 5 Scene 2

Death toll; In memoriam

RODERIGO, R.I.P.EMILIA, R.I.P.BRABANTIO, R.I.P.OTHELLO, R.I.P.DESDEMONA, R.I.P.

All these R.I.P. awards served by

Alive still — IAGO

All thanks to, or no thanks tonone other, than—

IAGO, the Destroyer

End of Days; Journey’s End

In the Act 5, Scene 1, Desdemona’s bedroom was changed into a hubbub of stabbing and shoutingDarkness broken by moving lights

Confused and rapid action

Agitated questioning and discussion

Act 5, Scene 2What does the audience see?

Setting:

A Bedchamber in the Castle

Desdemona in bed, asleep

Purposes of Act 5, Scene 2

To present the MURDER of Desdemona To present the unmasking of IAGO To tie up of loose ends of the plot To recapture for the audience some of

Othello’s former dignity To present the audience with a last look at

Desdemona and Emilia

And this final scene, what do we see?

We see a silent stage; a troubled stillness and darkness except for the pale shape of Desdemona’s

bed and there is a hushed instant of waiting

before Othello enters Othello’s eyes staring white in the light of his

candle, his black face glistening

One of the finest closing scenes in Shakespearean Tragic Drama

Othello looks at the sleeping Desdemona

He is moved by her innocent beauty and troubled by what he seesbecause of the shocking contrast between her heavenly appearance and Her sinful soul

How might Othello speak his opening lines at this moment in the play?

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul –Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars – It is the cause, And an instant later:

Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men,Put out the light, and then put out the light—

Dramatic effects

Reflects a mind torn by conflicting feelingsHer beauty: thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature and her balmy breath momentarily shake his resolution to kill her

The ‘cause’?

Desdemona’s imagined sexual infidelity

How will the audience hear these lines? These lines are surely intended to be spoken slowly… with a strange, heavy emphasis, and with the diction voiced to show the pitch of madness

to which he has been brought

Other drama critics / stage directors?

Othello’s opening speech should be delivered with poignancy

This speech is oratorically magnificent (Think of other speeches of Othello) Othello enters Desdemona’s bed-chamber in

boundless sorrow though he is still intent on killing her; We note he even bends over to kiss her

And finally, just before Desdemona awakes, as Othello stands looking down at her:

This sorrow’s heavenly; It strikes where it doth love…

From these lines it seems Othello has managed to move beyond the agony of personal jealousy

His mind has found relief from its torment in taking on a sense of almost god-like responsibility.

That his shame is no longer his alone, but the burden of all mankind

This is his megalomania Born of Othello’s earlier pride in himselfin which the personality has no conception of actual or possible errorbut acts with a calm conviction arising from complete justification He has recovered some of his composure

Saint Othello? Angel Othello; Pious Othello or Sacred Monster?

Othello now speaks as a man on a divine mission He exonerates himself from all crime One acting not from selfish bitterness But on behalf of justice and all mankind (even

the Iagos and Roderigos, and all the other bloody scumbags of the earth)

Desdemona is to be sacrificed, not murdered

Sacred Monster? (Cont)

It is to be a calculated sacrifice to justice It is the cause. The act of sacrifice pulls at his heartstrings

and doth almost persuade / Justice herself to break her sword

He is proud of his own restraint and his own cool command: yet I’ll not shed her blood / Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow

Dramatic Effect: Internal conflict

Othello is torn between his still powerful love for his wife, Desdemona, and the terrible conviction that she must be PUNISHED!!!

And the struggle within himself makes him weep cruel tears

Has he then appointed himself judge, jury, witness and executioner?

He is not about to commit a crime of passion or a vengeful murder

I will kill thee, // And love thee after

In this Soliloquy, we note

No references to strumpets and whores

Or to any degrading images of beasts

No reference to revenge, in the ordinary sense

Speaks at first with deadly quiet, patience to his wife

DESDEMONA: Will you come to bed, my lord?

OTHELLO: Have you prayed tonight, Desdemon?

Cont

OTHELLO:If you bethink yourself of any crimeUnreconciled as yet to heaven and grace, Solicit for it straight.

DESDEMONA: Alack, my lord, what may you mean by that?

OTHELLO:Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by:I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;No—heaven forfend!—I would not kill thysoul. DESDEMONA: Talk you of killing?OTHELLO: Ay, I do.

DESDEMONA: And yet I fear you: for you’re fatal thenWhen your eyes roll so. Why I should fear

I know not,Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel

fear.OTHELLO:Think on thy sins.

Note change in rhythms of dialogue

From lines 66 to 90 we can see: Othello’s gradual disintegration is mirrored in his style of speech at first swiftly authoritative, then broken (rhythm); full of barbaric extremism

For example

No, his mouth is stopped Had all his hairs being lives, my great

revenge / Had stomach for them all Out, strumpet! Weep’st thou for him to my

face? Down, strumpet! Being done, there is no pause

Then Desdemona’s pathetic request for time to pray—

DESDEMONA: But while I say one prayer!OTHELLO: It is too late.DESDEMONA: O, Lord, Lord, Lord!

And Note then, Stage Directions—

[He SMOTHERS her]

OTHELLO:

I, that am cruel, am yet merciful:I would not have thee linger in thy pain.

Some Critical, Reflective Questions

When Othello enters Desdemona’s chamber, does the burning light symbolize her virtue? Or perhaps her life?

Is he trying to justify his intention to kill her?

Is the reason he gives to save her from her own dishonour convincing, credible?

Further questions; andEchoes of Act 2 Scene 3?

Is Othello so lacking in self-knowledge that he cannot see reason?

We note he cannot help weeping at fate, but this does not soften his heart, or affect his resolve to kill her. So what are we to think?

Have we seen this attitude before in his peremptory dismissal of Cassio in Act 2, Scene 3?

Is his argument that sorrow is from heaven

a suggestion that God punishes those He loves

and that Othello’s pain in killing Desdemona is a sign of the justice of his cause?

Is Othello being sanctimonious in his advice to Desdemona to ask God to forgive her sins?

Is he being self-righteous in his claim that he would not try to kill her soul?

Yet, as you would have surely noticed later he does not allow her time for a single

prayer

Re- Is Othello lacking in reason?

Put out the light, and then put out the light We recall Desdemona was the light of his life Also light can refer to enlightenment as in the torchlight of reason (or the flame in

CJC) Symbolical of the light of reason? Othello

does not use his reason; ironical; No genuine proof of Desdemona’s misdeed

The Othello Inquisition

Note the form and choice of his words (diction): be think yourself of any crime… take heed of perjury confess thee freely For to deny each article with oath …thou

art to die O perjured woman He has confess’d

Characterizing the nature of his diction

His interrogation takes the form of a legal process in whichOthello is judge, Othello is counsel for the prosecution, and Othello is jury, all at once;

The language is that of a courtroomwith overtones of the confessional

The unmasking of IAGO

OTHELLO endeavours to justify his killing of Desdemona to Emilia, saying that he proceeded “upon just grounds”

Othello even suggests that Emilia ask her husband about these “just grounds”

This at once arouses Emilia’s suspicions Confronts her husband in front of OTHELLO

Demands that he “disprove a villain”

Emilia: He says thou told’st him that his wife is false, Iago equivocates at first then acknowledgesthat he did. However she only becomes fully convinced

when she hears Othello mention the handkerchief

Emilia now understands the whole evil plot

In spite of Iago’s threatening approach to her with a drawn sword Emilia unmasks his part

“that handkerchief thou speak’st on,I found by fortune, and did give my husband;For often with a solemn earnestness,More than indeed belong’d to such a trifle,He begg’d me steal it.”

Multiple ironies

Recalling Desdemona’s repeated pleas to Othello to send for Cassio to testify…

is not listened to

Othello is unwilling to make himself listen to the woman who has sacrificed so much for him

But is ever ready to listen and accept the deceits from Iago, the man dead set on destroying him

Iago; Famous last words

OTHELLO: [to Cassio] Will you, I pray, demandThat demi-devil // Why he hath thus ensnar’dmy soul and body

IAGO:Demand me nothing, what you know, youknow,From this time forth I never will speak word

We note Iago’s cool malignity

We note at final curtain time

A very unrepentant, remorseless Iago

is still very much alive

The enigma of Iago

When all has been said about Iago’s motivation, and psychology

There remains something in Shakespeare’s dramatic presentation of Iago

That defies rational explanation The play gives no fully, satisfactory answer

to Othello’s baffled request beyond a baffling response

Critical issues re- Othello’s final speech

This speech has long been the subject of divided responses

and hostile comments and reviews

among critics and scholars of the play

The famous critic, T.S. Eliot, suggested

That Othello, in his final speech, is trying to escape reality

That Othello is trying to cheer himself up;

And has ceased to think about Desdemona

That he is now only thinking of himself

For the critic, F.R. Leavis

Though Othello’s final speech begins with quiet authority, it ends in self-dramatization

That Othello is no tragic hero (Note)

Given that he has learned nothing from his misfortune and downfall;

And that he would rather rant, than think;

When Othello learns the truth; and comes to know what he has lost—

[It may be argued] Othello recovers much of his former nobility and dignity

The Othello who sends his final message to the Venetian Senate

is much like the man who faced the same senate body at the beginning

with his impressive rhetorical justification of his marriage

In considering Othello’s final speech; a technical tour de force?

In twenty lines, Othello presents a summary of the tragic action;

Given, not when the action the play has been completed

But while its outcome is still awaited

Past and Present

When Othello’s account reaches the present

Othello acts out what he describes as

The story of the turbaned Turk whom he once slew in the ancient city of Aleppo Which seems to take us back into his past

A very sensational climax

As Othello re-enacts

His past image, and present actuality merge

And Othello dies in his double role of killer, and killed

Both as the enemy and champion of his love

For the critic, Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespeare’s plays

Suggest that the choices people make in love are almost entirely inexplicable and irrational

Express Shakespeare’s deepest perception of existence

His preference for things untidy, damaged, unresolved; his skepticism;

And his refusal of easy consolations;