Othello

Othello by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Othello's constant vows to heaven and his romantic view of himself sets up his marriage to Desdemona in such idealised terms that they demand interrogation – which the villainously sceptical Iago is more than happy to provide. The play was written in close proximity to Measure for Measure, which is very interested in how moral purity turns people into hypocrites – Angelo and Isabella are maneuvered by the 'Duke of dark corners' into sordid compromises. In Othello, sexual jealousy is the rotten apple in the barrel. Othello and Desdemona are more sympathetic figures than Angelo and Isabella, and Iago is more straightforwardly evil than Duke Vincentio, but there's a similar dynamic of heavenly ideals being dragged by the devil into hell. Iago's resentment is the driving factor in this process – all ideals must be torn down as a result of being overlooked for promotion. The real hero in the story is his wife Emilia, who betrays and exposes him in the end, but also shows Desdemona a more realistic attitude to love and marriage, one that reflects Rosalind's lectures to Orlando in As You Like It. Between heaven and hell is the world, and to live in it requires abandoning the absolutist attitudes that destroy the couple in the play.

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