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From: Jasper
Date: 9/11/04
Time: 5:12:53 PM
Remote Name: 69.212.51.213
Some of you might find it hard to follow the exchange between Ludwig and I about Marcia as Othello, O.J. as Cassio, and Fuhrman as Iago. If so, it’s not your fault. It’s not Ludwig’s fault or mine.
Shakespeare’s Othello was written in Iambic Pentameter (an obsolete writing style) over 300 years ago. It uses slang expressions of 17th century England (“the beast with two backs,” for example means a man and a woman having sexual intercourse) and elaborate ways of saying simple things. Nevertheless, It’s a great play. Definitely five stars out of five. Even lesser characters like Roderigo (Ron Shipp) are fascinating.
Like all of Shakespeare’s plays, Othello was not written for a tiny circle of superior beings with a special gift for quoting lines that are indecipherable mere mortals like us. It was written for thinking people JUST LIKE US. You don’t have to understand every word to get the message. Actors rarely remember all of their lines the way they were written and it doesn’t matter to the playwright or the audience as long as they stay true to the author’s intent. You’re supposed to lighten up and enjoy it. If you do lighten up you will.
Othello is a story about true and false love (Iago and Desdemona’s true love for each other, Michael Cassio’s love of his position, and the love Iago pretended to have for Othello and Cassio). It’s a story about jealousy (Iago’s jealousy toward Cassio for the job he thought Othello should have given him) and the ruthless pursuit of ambition. It’s about Iago’s ambition to take Cassio’s place and to punish Othello for promoting Cassio over him. The idea was to drive Othello to murder and then have him publicly humiliated in a murder trial and executed by the state. It would have worked if Othello hadn’t killed himself and Iago’s wife hadn’t spilled the beans when she figured out what he did.
I think Shakespeare called the play Othello: The Moor of Venice because Othello was the focus of everything that happened. If he had it to do over again, knowing how badly it would be interpreted, he might have called it Iago. Othello has to be black to point up hidden parts of Iago’s character – things that Shakespeare clearly thought were crazy and evil. Iago was a racist (crazy) and a hypocrite (evil). He thought that Othello’s skin color meant that he was the Devil although the closest thing to the Devil in the play is Iago. http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/othello/ http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/othello/othello.3.3.html
These snippets from Scene 3 Act 3 might help to put things in perspective…
IAGO: Ha! I like not that. (Whoa! I don’t like that.)
OTHELLO: What dost thou say? (What are you talking about?)
IAGO: Nothing, my lord: or if--I know not what. (Nothing, boss. Well…Maybe…I don’t know what I saw.)
OTHELLO: Was not that Cassio parted from my wife? (Wasn’t that Cassio leaving my wife?)
IAGO: Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it, (I know I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw!) That he would steal away so guilty-like, Seeing you coming.
Cassio was not “steeling away, knowing that Othello was coming. He didn’t even see Othello and he wasn’t doing anything “guilty-like.” All he did was pay Desdemona an innocent complement in public to be polite – which is the way Othello took it. Othello liked Cassio and just wanted to say hello to him. But the way “honest” Iago hedged, knitted his brown and in other was hinted that something was wrong convinced Othello that Iago was hiding something important that he didn’t want to come right out and say.
The fact that Othello had to pry it out of Iago convinced him that Iago really didn’t what to say what he thought. When he did, Othello thought he was imagining things. When Iago started telling him to beware of “jealousy, the green-eyed monster” Othello didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t jealous of anybody. He saw no reason to be. With a word here, some “hard evidence” there and masterful manipulation of people to make them think that they could get what they wanted by following Iago’s suggestions, he finally got Othello to see things the way he wanted him to.
It never dawned on Othello that Iago was inadvertently revealing his own motives for feeding him all that bullshit or doing likewise to Cassio (who wanted his job back) and Desdemona (who wanted to help him because she knew Othello hated firing him). It never dawned on Othello that Iago was a liar and a racist with a hidden agenda (the concept of racism wasn’t articulated until the late 1700s and word “racist” wasn’t invented until the 1960s)
The most effective elements in Iago’s lies are truth common sense. He takes things that the people he manipulates know are true or logical and gives them a deceptive spin. He can and does tell Othello what he plans to do to him and to Cassio without arousing suspicion just by moving things around a little and telling one “little” lie…
IAGO: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed. (A good reputation is priceless. If somebody steals your money he gets nothing of lasting value. If he destroys your reputation he still gets nothing but you’re screwed.) --Jasper