THE KING’S MAN 247
disturbing. The monster is a
demonic entity that possesses
its host and takes over its life.
Iago plants a small suspicion in
his general’s mind, feeding it
slowly until Othello is physically
incapacitated by an obsession
with his wife’s infidelity. Throughout
the play, jealousy is described
as wicked, a plague, and as
something damned.
Othello’s fervid imagination
is tainted by carnal images, which
manifest themselves in his use
of bodily rhetoric. He speaks of
Desdemona’s flesh rotting and
perishing, of other men “tast[ing]
her sweet body” (3.3.351), and of
Cassio stealing her lips so that
she is “stolen.” Othello accuses
Desdemona of being a strumpet
and whore. This preoccupation
with carnal imagery culminates
in an analogy in which he
compares his wife’s genitals
to the gates of hell.
Many Shakespearean tragedies
revolve around a character’s central
and unfixable flaw. In this case,
the tragedy comes from green-eyed
jealousy that was born, nursed,
and nurtured in Othello’s own
imagination. The jealous “nature”
that he argues was inherited from
his Moorish ancestors becomes,
by this logic, Othello’s tragic flaw.
The evil seeds that Iago sows
thrive so virulently in Othello’s
mind and body that in the end
there is nowhere else for them
to grow but to reach out and
destroy Desdemona.
This very specific tragic flaw
has not always been considered
a satisfying topic for a great
tragedy. In the early 20th century,
the British Shakespeare scholar
A. C. Bradley complained that the
tragic aspects of the play wereThe American actor and singer Paul
Robeson played Othello on the London
stage in 1930, opposite Peggy Ashcroft
as Desdemona. At the time, it was still
rare for black actors to play the role.overshadowed by its subject
matter: a man who is sexually
jealous of his wife. This, in
Bradley’s view, was something
profoundly objectionable and
morally repulsive. ❯❯Portraying Othello Critics have famously disagreed
in their responses to the character
of Othello. In 1937, the critic
F. R. Leavis argued that the
character is inherently savage,
and only barely manages to cover
his uncivilized nature until he
gives in to instinct. On the other
hand, romanticized readings of
Othello characterize him as an
honorable man rather than an
unprincipled savage. In the
1870s and 80s, the Italian actor
Tommaso Salvini interpreted
the Moor as a hot-blooded and
passionate but noble hero. He
performed Othello’s suicide byslitting his throat and dying
with fierce bodily convulsions.
Salvini performed the part in
Italian, even on occasions when
the rest of the cast spoke
English, which led to him being
known as the Italian Moor.
Prior to the late 20th century,
Othello was played by white
actors such as Orson Welles
(pictured) wearing dark
make-up, a practice now
obsolete. An exception was in
a racially inverted production in
1997 in Washington DC, when
Patrick Stewart played a white
Othello in a black nation.This fellow’s of
exceeding honesty,
And knows all qualities
with a learned spirit...
Othello
Act 3, Scene 3