Othello: The Image Of Marriage

Early modern marriage entailed many expectations of the wives rather than an equal partnership between husband and wife. During the Elizabethan period, Shakespeare focused more on unruly marriages because of the wife. In the play, Othello, the image of marriage is brought to the forefront by the main characters. In these nuptials, between Othello and Desdemona comes passion and trust, while in the other between Iago and Emilia comes deception and tolerance between partners. When contrasting these two relationships, words spoken by one character will jeopardize the integrity of each marriage rather than relying on the actions of the other spouse.

In Othello, the purpose of Iago's character is to replace passion and trust in the marriages with deception and tolerance between spouses.

At the beginning of act 1, Iago will explain his plans for Othello's downfall. While explaining the plans for Othello, he states what made him choose to do this to his friend and military brother. Othello chooses another man for lieutenant instead of Iago, who believes he has waited too long for the chance to be the second in command.

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These plans will allude to how Iago will bring Othello down a notch by using Othello's wife as a way to get under his skin, but first, he must alert her father about the wrong that Othello has committed against him. Desdemona is a beautiful young woman that has fallen in love with Othello, the moor. Desdemona and Othello have just recently married without her father's consent. An in the Elizabethan period, it was not typical for young women to choose who she married, but instead, it was in the hands of the father — knowing that Desdemona's father would never allow for or except Othello as his son-in-law because of his skin color.

Iago plans to use this to his advantage in his plan to undermined Othello. The unraveling of a father and daughter relationship is step one in Iago's master plan to achieve the status he believes to be rightfully his. Step two in Iago's plan is to break-up the newly married couple by rumors of cheating.

In the next part of Iago's plan, he will have to plant seeds of doubt in both Othello and Desdemona's minds about their relationship before the plan can go through. Doubt would be effortless for Iago to plant because the newly married couple began a relationship off of an enigma toward each other, war stories, and raw attraction. Iago's plan hinges on if Othello believes the accusations made about Desdemona and Cassio. Iago will further use Othello's new relationship of trust with his lieutenant by placing a precious handkerchief in his hands, that belongs to his lovely new wife. The handkerchief will be Othello's last clue to what he believes to be an affair between Desdemona and his lieutenant.

“The context in which Desdemona hears his adventures and the details of his hard life is one of use. Othello was invited “oft” to her father’s house to relate “the story” of his life…his sad life providing colorful entertainment in Brabantio’s house. In the midst of this, Othello privately imitates his story to Desdemona, in response to which she gives him “a world of sighs… Othello loves because he is pitied.”

“This interpenetration of the sexual with the self-commending will make the possibility of betrayal even more disastrous than it would for other lovers because it will not merely ignite possessiveness but threaten to preempt her previous admiration for him.”

“While Shakespeare doubts whether we can know what love is, it does have a consistent structure of feeling. Love in Othello involves a pair of seemingly contradictory yet mutually reinforcing movements, ones that correspond to Cartesian thinking about God and about love: a feeling of be possessed by the beloved on the one hand, and, on the other, a desire to possess the beloved.”

“Iago seems to realize that life without passion—whether love or hate—is life without action.”

“The act not only begins but also ends with Iago’s openly stating his hatred and translating it into schemes against Othello.”

“Although Iago succeeds in dividing husband and wife, he fails in a profounder sense: Desdemona never wavers in the fidelity of which Iago denies the existence. When she protests Othello’s harshness or asserts her innocence to him, she has the vigor of incredulity, but she does not fly off into the loud vehemence of offended self-love, just as in defending herself to Iago and Emilia she does not rise above a hurt amazement and a mild earnestness of asseveration.”

“Actually by stressing Othello’s innocence, modern critics have rodded the character of what the Elizabethans considered man’s highest dignity—his own responsibility for his life and character.”

“He is understandably human – but he is not greatly noble. It is this, the refusal to face reality, this, the trait of self-idealization, which makes of Shakespeare’s Othello a psychologically consistent characterization and which explains why he falls so quickly into Iago’s trap, why he alone on Iago’s instigation believes Desdemona a strumpet.”