PEQUEÑA MAQUINARIA .1 Sierra circular

This scene, in its entirety, is pivotal in Othello. In 475 lines Shakespeare transforms the self-possessed, confident, and disciplined Othello into a dis- traught prisoner, bound to Iago and tormented by a jealous rage. The scene is constructed as a smooth and seamless progression of several encounters flowing one into the other. In it Shakespeare not only deepens the portrayal of each of the major characters, but he also makes their characters the driving force of the plot. Cassio’s mixture of pride and shame, Desdemona’s innocent

boldness, Othello’s fear that his social standing and self-regard are funda- mentally inauthentic, Iago’s skill as a rhetorician who can insinuate himself into his auditor’s consciousness through verbal manipulation, emilia’s accep- tance of her subjugation to her husband: All are depicted and employed as the elements that move the action of the play forward.

At line 30, Cassio has just finished asking Desdemona if she will intercede with Othello for him. Desdemona has assured him, with a determined spirit, that she will. emilia announces Othello’s entrance. Guilty about his misconduct and ashamed of himself, Cassio says he will not stay. It is precisely the wrong move. It is not what Othello did earlier in the play when Iago advised him, “You were best go in,” as Brabantio and his men came in search of him (I, ii, 29). There Othello responded, “Not I. I must be found,” and by that stand he asserted his assurance of his virtue and pride. Unlike Cassio, Othello was sure of his worth and aware of the service he had performed for the state.

Iago uses Cassio’s departure to begin his work of infecting Othello with jealousy. Seeing him leave, Iago mutters, half inaudibly, “I like not that.” When Othello asks him what he just said, Iago acts confused: “Nothing, my lord; or if—I know not what,” which arouses Othello’s curiosity and suspicion. Thus, when Othello asks, “Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?” his question has an uneasiness it would not have had without Iago’s previous observation. Iago’s response deepens Othello’s uneasiness. He repeats Othello’s question with a question, “Cassio, my lord?” It’s a technique he continues to use throughout the scene, as if he were holding something back for Othello’s own good. Asserting something by denying it, he says, “I cannot think it / That he would steal away so guilty-like / Seeing you coming.”

With these few words Iago frames the way Othello hears whatever Desdemona says to him. She, of course, begins to plead Cassio’s cause. Not yet entirely subverted by Iago, Othello hears her but delays yielding immediately to her request. In consequence, she presses harder.

At line 93, after Desdemona has pleaded her case for Cassio and then departed, Iago begins his work on Othello in earnest, asking if Cassio, as Desdemona has just said, had acted as a go-between for the couple. He insinuates that there is something disturbing in this, that there was a troubling intimacy, perhaps, between them. Throughout, he uses the same technique of interrupting himself and of repeating Othello’s words, as if preventing himself from saying things that might hurt Othello and yet he seems duty-bound to reveal. His aim is to make Othello unsure of himself.

Implicitly contrasting Cassio and Othello and speculating about Desdemona’s character, Iago uses the same arguments against the possibility of Desdemona’s loving Othello (i.e., for Desdemona to marry him, it would go against nature, for she must find his blackness appalling and his age unsatisfying) that her father had previously used and Othello had so well withstood. Iago’s genius is

Key Passages in Othello 33

to undermine Othello’s self-regard so subtly that these arguments now trouble him. Iago insinuates rather than declares things; he does not tell Othello to be jealous but rather to beware of being jealous. By leading Othello to deny that he is jealous, Iago forces Othello to entertain the possibility that he is jealous.

Iago’s coup de grace is to urge Othello to put off restoring Cassio’s office. He shrewdly admits Cassio deserves reinstatement, but he suggests the delay will give Othello the opportunity to measure how ardently Desdemona intercedes for him. Once Iago leaves him alone, Othello, in a painful soliloquy, worries over the things Iago has said as if they were his own thoughts, mulling about his blackness, regretting having married, and vowing to cast Desdemona aside despite his great love for her should she prove false.

As he is plagued by these thoughts, Desdemona returns. Seeing her, he cannot believe that she is dishonest. Nevertheless, his ordeal has weakened him, and when he tells her his head aches—bitterly implying that he feels the horns of a cuckold, a betrayed husband—she offers to bind it with her handkerchief. He stops her, probably pushing her hand away from his head, and she drops the handkerchief. Focused on him, she does not even notice she has dropped it. They exit together, leaving emilia, who had accompanied Desdemona, alone onstage. emilia sees the handkerchief, picks it up, and notes that it is the one Iago had been asking her to steal from Desdemona. She says she will have the handkerchief copied, give the copy to Iago, and return the original to Desdemona. But when Iago teases her at line 297, she teases him back by saying she has something he wants. When she dangles the handkerchief in front of him, he grabs it from her and sends her away, ordering her to forget about the handkerchief.

When Othello reenters at line 327, tormenting himself with jealous fears, Iago notes with satisfaction how he has destroyed Othello’s peace of mind. “Not poppy nor mandragora / Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world / Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep / Which thou owedst yesterday,” he says to himself, his words aimed at Othello. He continues to work upon Othello, telling him that he has slept beside Cassio lately and that in his sleep Cassio had called Desdemona’s name. In addition, he says he has seen Cassio using Desdemona’s handkerchief to wipe his beard. Othello is inflamed with jealous rage and longs to avenge himself.

The scene ends with Othello making Iago his lieutenant and Iago vowing his loyalty to Othello: “I am your own for ever.”

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Act IV, i, 264–283