958 shakespeare, William
of reason to poise another of sensuality, the / blood
and baseness of our natures would conduct us / to
most preposterous conclusions” (1.3.326–329).
Todd Pettigrew
Love in Othello
Critical to any evaluation of the love between
Othello and Desdemona are the characterizations
they make of their own relationship when they
appear before the duke to explain their surprising
marriage. Othello’s characterization is charmingly
complex because it centers on his own life history,
her response to it, and his response to her response:
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And
I loved her that she did pity them” (1.3.167–168).
Othello, who by all accounts has spent his life
as a warrior, seems astonished that his tales may
prove more than awe-inspiring entertainments. And
though one might find it strange that the seemingly
innocent Desdemona would be so eager to hear his
tales of violence, it is vital to note that Desdemona
is not moved out of sympathy for Othello’s suffer-
ings by the violence itself. She cries not when she
hears of swordplay in general, but when she learns
of a “distressful stroke” (1.3.157) that Othello once
suffered. Desdemona does not have a fetish for
bloodshed; rather, she finds in Othello a man whose
great sufferings are worthy of her vast compassion.
Much of Desdemona’s account of her early
conversations with Othello comes to us secondhand
from Othello himself, showing her witty and “half
the wooer” (1.3.175). When we do get an account
from her directly—in part because of the context
in which the question is asked—she focuses first on
her complex social obligations as a newly married
woman. Asked by her father where she most owes
obedience, she pays due reverence to him by thank-
ing him for her “life and education” but insists that
just as her mother left her own father to be loyal to
him, she must respect Othello as her husband and
lord. In this way, Desdemona successfully navigates
the “divided duty” imposed on a young gentlewoman
(1.3.179–188).
Neither of these visions of love, a deep personal
sympathy, nor a delicate social responsibility, prove
able to withstand the machinations of Iago and his
allies, who are determined to shatter it. Indeed, if
the play presents any hope for lasting love, it may be
the much less idealized vision of love presented by
Emilia in her fascinating conversation with Desde-
mona late in the play. Emilia’s account of marriage
is pragmatic to the point of bitterness. She claims,
though perhaps with some irony, that traditional
worries about fidelity are overstated and that under
the right circumstances, betraying one’s mate for a
greater good might be in order: “[W ]ho would not
make her husband a cuckold to make him a mon-
arch?” (4.3.70–71). If Emilia is only partly serious
in this moment, she becomes deadly serious a few
moments later when she lists the manifold crimes
that husbands commit, only to point out that wives
are capable of the same mischief: “Then let them use
us well: else let them know, / The ills we do, their
ills instruct us so” (4.3.97–98). Emilia implies that a
loving marriage can be neither a passionate adven-
ture, nor a rigorously proper alliance, but only a wary
truce based on self-interest and mutual suspicion.
The play does little to repudiate her view.
Todd Pettigrewrace in Othello
Though race is an essential element in Othello, it
is an element that is exceedingly difficult to pin
down. To begin, Othello’s racial status as a Moor is
frequently made an issue almost from the very first
moments of the play, and in a way that suggests that
at least some in Venice have not welcomed the for-
eigner. Roderigo calls him “the thick-lips,” and Iago
highlights Othello’s race when he wants to paint an
ugly sexual picture for Desdemona’s father, Braban-
tio: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is
tupping your white ewe” (1.1.88–89).
When Brabantio himself comes to court in an
effort to reclaim his runaway daughter, he accuses
Othello of having ensnared Desdemona “in chains
of magic” (1.2.63) rather than having genuinely won
her heart. This is a common claim of Shakespearean
characters who object to the loves of others, but in
this particular context, the accusation of black magic
takes on a particularly sinister tone. Moreover, Bra-
bantio’s argument is racially charged by his claim
that only “foul charms” could lead Desdemona to
reject the “wealthy curled darlings of our nation”
(1.2 68; emphasis added) in favor of “the sooty