The Liberation of Emilia

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Kristian Malone
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1 The Liberation of SOLOMON IYASERE So speaking as I think, I die, I die. (Othello ) No episode in Shakespeare s tragedies is more shocking and more heart-rending than the murder of Desdemona, an event too dreadful to be endured. From the Renaissance to the present, the dastardliness of this excruciating spectacle has evoked strong emotions in viewers, readers and critics alike. What instruction can we make out of this Catastrophe? Thomas Rymer (141) asked in 1693: Is not this to envenome and sour our spirits, to make us repine and grumble at Providence and the government of the World? If this be our end, what boots it to be Vertuous? (142). Because of its pivotal importance, the tragic event has received sustained critical attention, often focusing on the role plays immediately following Desdemona s murder. condemns Othello (in language laced with racial insults), repudiates her husband Iago for his villainy and, with equal rigor, defends Desdemona s fair fame and virtue. Several critics have praised for her defiant nobility. A.C. Bradley makes the point, From the moment of her appearance after the murder to the moment of her death she is transfigured; and yet remains perfectly true to herself... She is the only person who utters for us the violent emotions which we feel together with those tragic emotions which she does not comprehend (78). Ellen Terry observes: [] knows no fear. How she shames the fearful, those who fear the opinions of the world, or fear to make themselves ridiculous, or fear the consequences, and so are silent in defense of truth. It is significant that chivalrous champions of the honour of the living Hero, as of the dead Desdemona, should both be women! Significant, and original. Shakespeare is one of the very few dramatists who seem to have observed that women have more courage than men. (67) On the contrary, however, Kenneth Burke de-emphasises s actions as heroic with the following observations:... because of [ s] relation to Iago within the conditions of the play, because of the things she alone knows, she is in the best position to take over the vindictive role we eagerly require of someone at this point. Or, you could state it thus: Some disclosures are due, she is in a position to make them, and if she makes them venomously, she will do best by our pentup fury, a fury still heightened by the fact that Desdemona died Christ like. (145-46) While I agree with Burke that is in the best position at the close of the play to reveal Iago s venomous plot against Desdemona because she alone knows about the handkerchief around which the pusillanimous intrigue revolved, I do not believe that she is a mere functionary (as Burke would have her). Terry is right in drawing our attention to s heroic action. But simply drawing our attention to it is not sufficient; she needs to show, as I intend to demonstrate in this short essay, why we must view s action not only as daring, but as noble and heroic. Shakespeare in Southern Africa Vol. 21, 2009, 69-72

2 70 SHAKESPEARE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA The Venetian world presented within the play is a patriarchal world in which women must think of themselves as other and man as primary or subject ; banish ideas of self-sovereignty; rely on economic independence to assure freedom; and forego challenging societal patterns (Dash 249) in short, a world of masculine power in which men marginalise women to privilege manly virtues, as Othello implies when he says of Desdemona, Yet she must die, else she ll betray more men (5.2.6). The marginality of women in this society, the treatment of women as passive objects rather than persons, to be seen rather than to be heard, is forcefully made clear by Francesco Barbaro in his 1416 treatise On Wifely Duties: [I]t is proper... that not only arms but indeed also the speech of women never be made public, for the speech of a noble woman can be no less dangerous than the nakedness of her limbs (quoted in Kohl et al 205). Writing two centuries later, Benedetto Varchi also underscored the importance of adopting the code of silence : Maides must be seene, not heard, or selde or never, O may I such one wed, if I wed ever. A maide that hath a lewd tongue in her head Worse that if she were found with a man in bed. (28) s pungent, cynical comment laced with crude, sensual images sums it up: Tis not a year or two showed us a man: They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; They eat us hungrily, and when they are full They belch us. ( ) Stressing the maltreatment of women in Venetian society and the potential for women to revolt and take revenge against men, observes: But I do think it is their husbands faults If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties And pour our treasures into foreign laps, Or else break out in peevish jealousies, Throwing our restraint upon us; or say they strike us, Or scant our former having in despite Why, we have galls; and though we have some grace, Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them. They see, and smell, And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. What is it that they do When they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is. And doth affection breed it? I think it doth. Is t frailty that thus errs? It is too. And have not we affections? Desires for sport? And frailty? As men have? Then let them use us well; else let them know, The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. ( ) The scene in Othello which illuminates most clearly occurs in the fifth act. After Othello murders Desdemona, is about to reveal the truth about the handkerchief at the centre of Iago s plot: Iago Oh, Heaven! Oh, heavenly powers! Zounds! Hold your peace! Twill out, twill out! I peace?

3 THE LIBERATION OF EMILIA 71 Iago No, I will speak as liberal as the north. Let Heaven and men and devils, let them all, All, all, cry shame against me, yet I ll speak. Be wise, and get you home. I will not. ( ) Betrayed by her husband, repudiates the corrupt, male-dominated world of Venice. As she lies dying after she has been stabbed by Iago, addresses Othello thus: I will play the Swan, And die in music. [Sings] Willow, willow, willow. Moor, she was chaste. She loved thee, cruel Moor, So come my soul to bliss as I speak True So speaking as I think, I die, I die. ( ) By choosing to speak and act as she thinks and feels, she attains psychological freedom, liberating herself from societal domination and from her own self-imposed restraints. From a contemporary point of view, s decision to speak out is a unique existential event. James Calderwood observes, Repeatedly in Shakespeare the test of life itself is not whether a character can be seen but whether he or she can be heard... if the sign of life is speech, the sign of death is silence (30). For the first time, is true to herself and she dies triumphantly, if tragically, in music, confronting the world with her honest feelings. Clark Moustakas makes the point: Honesty implies a willingness to assert what one sees and allegiance to what one perceives. Being true to one s own experience is the central requirement in the continued existence of a real self (65). When Iago orders to go home ( ), he is addressing the former, a wife who was psychologically a slave to him, who would do anything to please him, because she had learned wifely obedience; she was his property. But at this point, the new has abandoned conventional wifely behaviour and has broken out of her own self-imposed restraints. From a theological point of view, speaks out to rid herself of the burden of guilt and liberate herself from eternal damnation. We should not forget how important the state of one s soul at the moment of death was to Renaissance Catholics. If remains silent, she will be damned; her one hope for salvation lies in confessing the truth. She is entirely aware of the need to confess and declares her reason quite plainly: So come my soul to bliss as I speak True. At the beginning of the play, Iago adopts a new mode of existence independent of social constraints because he believes Othello has betrayed him by not awarding him the promotion he earned with his faithful, spotless service: I follow but myself (1.1.58). With this proclamation, Iago s thoughts and actions become totally individualised and he frees himself of moral or ethical considerations, proceeding with vengeance, creating a new reality that conforms to his own definition and not to the one prescribed by society (Gray 395). Iago s use of freedom, however, stands in strong contrast to that of. While freedom presents with the opportunity to affirm Desdemona s virtues and to expose the truth behind Iago s falsehood, Iago s freedom gives him the opportunity to commit to himself and to falsehood, to victimise and exploit others, including. In this crucial episode, for the first time in the play asserts her own existence, independent of Iago: Tis proper I obey him, but not now./perchance, Iago, I will ne er go home ( ). s action is one Iago cannot tolerate, for in his narcissistic view of the world, her psychological freedom repudiates his existence and violates his psychic being; Iago s freedom entails domination and control of others. Humiliated by his failure to silence ( , 194, 219) and to dominate her as he has in the past ( ), Iago loses control for the first and only time in the play. Fatally stabbing his wife is an act of impulsive, not premeditated, violence. After murdering, he adopts the code of silence, again for the first time in the play ( ). Thus Iago s silence becomes the sign of his demise, his eternal damnation.

4 72 SHAKESPEARE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA As for, her decisive action in these crucial scenes transfigures her from a common member of society to a heroine. She is not a mere functionary, as Kenneth Burke argues, but has instead been transformed from a scheming, pragmatic, cynical and narcissistic individual into someone who is selfless and altruistic. She becomes too late less masculine, less like Iago, and more feminine, more like Desdemona; and she finds, at last, the courage to defy the tyranny of evil. WORKS CITED Bradley, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Macmillan, Burke, Kenneth. Othello: An Essay to Illustrate a Method in Othello, Critical Essays ed. Susan Snyder. Calderwood, James L. The Properties of Othello. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, Dash, Irene G. Wooing, Wedding and Power. New York: Columbia University Press, Gray, Garry. Iago s Metamorphosis in College Language Association Journal 28 (4, 1985): Kohl, B.G., Witt, R.E. and Welles, E.B. Eds. The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, Moustakas, Clark. Creativity and Conformity. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, McFarland, Thomas. Tragic Meaning in Shakespeare. New York: Random House, Rymer, Thomas. A Short View of Tragedy. Menston: The Scholar Press, 1970 [1693]. Shakespeare, William. Othello (New, Revised Edition) ed. Alvin Kernan. New York: Penguin, Snyder, Susan. Ed. Othello: Critical Essays. New York: Garland Publishing, Terry, Ellen. Desdemona in Othello, Critical Essays ed. Susan Snyder. Varchi, Benedetto. The Blazon of Jealousie trans. R. Toste. London: 1615.

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The test will provide the following quotations, and then ask for three responses: Who speaking? To whom is that person speaking? What do the words mean? Rude am I in my speech, And little blessed with