150 Ideals in the Modern World
exceptions that are not too glaring, are set in motion generally by
motives of self- interest or wickedness. For he wishes to show in the
mirror of poetry men, not moral caricatures; and so everyone recog-
nizes them in the mirror and his works live today and for all time” (67).
Othello cries out for “ocular proof ” of Desdemona’s betrayal. He
must know. He cannot be content with half knowledge—he cannot
reside in uncertainties and mysteries and doubts in the way that
Iago (and purportedly Shakespeare) can do. He reaches the point
where the stability of his vision of the world— his heroic vision—
becomes more im por tant to him than his wife’s virtue. (Othello, we
might say, is an unsophisticated proponent of what Derrida would
call the metaphysics of presence, the idea that Truth must be clear,
pre sent, and beyond interpretation. Iago: the fi rst deconstruc-
tionist.) And no won der: Othello’s heroic epistemology— the idea
that words are transparent to things and that seeing is believing—is
what keeps him sane and allows him to maintain his dignifi ed sense
of himself. “I had been happy,” he says, “if the general camp, / Pio-
ners and all, had tasted her sweet body, / So I had nothing known”
(III.iii.345–347). Othello had rather his wife had been a whore
and he had known nothing about it than be in the state of uncer-
tainty that so torments him— and that is Iago’s ele ment. Othello can
live with ignorance and he can live with absolute Truth, but not with
the states in between.
Othello is in uncertainties, and he senses that he will never have
true resolution. He readily sees how deadly the consequences of this
state are for him: “Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! /
Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars / That makes ambi-
tion virtue” (III.iii.348–350). Othello knows that he has fallen. His
worldview based on transparency and assurance is now lost, and
without his epic senses of fullness— the one that Achilles possessed
and lost and found again— Othello cannot be the man he was. Un-
like Achilles, Othello has no way to repossess his stability of mind.