Othello: Too Much Love Analyze

Othello: Too Much Love

Analyze the use of deception by Iago in Act III, Scene 3. What kinds of deception does Iago use as various pieces of "evidence" he gives to Othello in this scene? How many pieces of evidence does Iago give Othello in this scene -- please indicate by line numbers? Analyze this scene in terms of being a turning point in the play. What is Othello's tragic flaw? Is Desdemona merely a prop, a flat, cardboard character -- a foil for the action of the male characters?

"I cannot think it, / That he would steal away so guilty-like, / Seeing you coming." says Iago to Othello, as the two of them observe Desdemona and Cassio from afar (III.3.44). Iago cleverly plants the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind almost immediately during this scene. Yet Iago creates a perception of himself as plain-spoken and honest by proclaiming Desdemona's apparent guilt as if it just occurred to him. Then, he watches as Desdemona begs Othello to pardon Cassio, an act that Iago has machinated behind the scenes, without Othello's knowledge.

Othello calls Iago full of "love and honesty" (III.3.136). However, this is a term he should really apply to Desdemona. She is a brave woman, who despite being described as meek and mild by Brabatino, her father, cuts her ties with her family and marries an older African man because she loves him. She wooed by his inspiring tales of military valor and overcoming slavery at the hands of his captors. Until Desdemona is physically and verbally browbeaten by Othello, she is spirited and independent-minded, and does not like being patronized.

Iago, however, holds Desdemona's great act of love and disobedience against her: "She did deceive her father, marrying you," he says, ironically, to the Moor (III.3.233). Act III, Scene 3 is the climax of the play because once the seed of jealousy is planted, everything Othello sees is tainted. Even Othello knows this: "Farewell the tranquil mind; farewell content!" (III.3. 395). Othello knows his great fault -- his honor is too easily bruised, and fearing to lose the woman he loves, he will lose everything. Finally, Iago suggests that Cassio has been given the strawberry-spotted, enchanted handkerchief that was Othello's gift to Desdemona. This signifies her infidelity and her carelessness (III.3.488). Combined with Cassio's supposed erotic dream about Desdemona, Othello is convinced by Iago (III.3.477).

Compare Emilia, Desdemona's handmaid, with the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, as comic characters. What is Emilia realistic commentary on monogamy in her scene with Desdemona towards the end of the play? How is comic relief used in Shakespeare's later tragedies, specifically Othello, as opposed to Titus Andronicus? Does Shakespeare employ comic relief in Titus? What is the narrative function of comic relief in a tragedy? Does comic relief break the tragic mode -- is it inconsistent with tragedy?

Emilia does not tell mildly off-color jokes and encourage the sexual enjoyments of her mistress, like the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Emilia embittered by her own loveless marriage, and says that women cannot be blamed if they 'fall,' as they have appetites, just like men: "The ills we [wives] do, their ills [husbands] instruct us so" (IV.4.88). Any comedy provided by Emilia's scene is bitter. Instead of the types of comic scenes that are clearly inserted, and have little to do with the plot as in Titus, in Othello, the comedy is suited to the tone of the tragedy, and moves the plot along. Emilia's sarcasm is consistent with her character, and her misery in her marriage is one reason that Othello finally learns about how he has been duped. It is Emilia who is prompted to tell him what transpired regarding the strawberry-spotted handkerchief. "O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak'st of I found by fortune and did give my husband" (V.5.267-268).

Iago can often overpower Othello and steal the play. Indeed, the play could as easily be called Iago. How can Iago be analyzed as a development of the earlier prototype, Aaron? Can Iago's calumny be seen as a characteristic of the devil, of pure evil? In what way is Iago motiveless? If Iago has any motives, what are they? What scenes and lines show Iago to have motives? What are his possible motives? If Iago is motiveless, what scenes and lines can you provide that show him to be the devil himself? Can the devil die?

At first, it does not seem that Iago is motiveless -- rather Iago has too many motivations. He complains to Roderigo that he has been denied promotion because of Cassio's youth, breeding, and better name. "Preferment goes by letter and affection, / Not by the old gradation" (1.1.37-38). Then he vaguely alleges that the Moor may have had a tryst with Emilia, which Emilia later denies, and which seems impossible, given that Emilia and Othello have the most openly adversarial relationship in the play. Iago may be one of the most ambiguous characters in all of Shakespeare (White 283).

Iago seems to know that he is condemned to hell -- even in the first scene, he has a premonition of his damnation: "Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains" (I.1.161). Iago seems to be searching for motivations to excuse his bad deeds, rather than to be motivated by malice alone, like a devil. Iago calls the Moor a devil: "Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you," he says to Brabantio (I.1. 96). But it is Othello who seems to have a premonition of Iago's evil when Othello says, after Iago has whipped him into a murderous fury with his false evidence: "Whip me you devils!" (I.5. 278). And of course, despite being injured by the great general he defamed, Iago lives on at the end of the play. Iago vows to speak no more, as if without doing evil deeds, he has no reason for being in the world

In the film version of Othello, who dominates the play, Fishburne or Branagh? In either case, support your commentary by referring to inherent strengths and weaknesses written into the characters the play. Is the interpretation of the play given in the film version what you imagined when you read the text? Does the film interpretation agree with the perspective of the Elizabethans -- or do you think that the director has attempted to supply motivation not provided in the text for Iago's motivation (specifically in the conclusion of Act III, Scene 2, when Branagh react in a peculiar way to Othello's offer of love). Does this interpretation fit with the text?