To What Extent Could it be said that the death of Othello Represents on Stage the Death of an Age?

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Ruth Messenger                                                                                  March 2002

To What Extent Could it be said that the death of Othello

Represents on Stage the Death of an Age?

        Shakespeare wrote the play ‘Othello’ round about the year 1602 and it is still revered as one of his great works today, 400 years later. It is the story of a great man, a tragic hero whose only flaw was exploited and manipulated by his ‘best friend’ to Othello’s grievous demise. Othello perished by his own hand following the murder by him of his beautiful wife Desdemona. Iago had fooled him into believing she had been having an affair, and when Othello discovered it was pure fabrication it was too late and Desdemona was dead. Having murdered the woman he loved, Othello stabbed himself because he couldn’t bear to live: “I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.” To find what extent it could be said that the death of Othello on stage represents the death of an age, we must look at the play in different contexts – did Othello’s death represent a change in attitude or ideas? A change in the world at the time Shakespeare was writing? A change in contemporary drama? Or could it instead be argued that the death of one fictional character cannot represent anything other that a fitting and poignant ending to an excellent play?

        To evaluate Othello’s death and whether or not it represents the death of an age, we must accept that Othello must embody an old set of values, way of living, thinking or behaving (the old age dying out) and Iago; the new way of thinking that took it’s place - a new age surfacing. One way to look at this is that Othello represents old, ‘medieval knight’ values and Iago represents the newer, Machiavellian way of thinking and acting.

Critic A. C. Bradley would disagree however with the theory of Iago being a Machiavellian villain: I may add that Iago can certainly not be taken to exemplify the popular Elizabethan idea of a disciple of Machiavelli. There is no sign that he is in theory an atheist or even an unbeliever in the received religion.”

        Machiavelli’s writings earned him a notoriety for being in support of deceit, manipulation and immoral acts in the name of achieving ambition. I would argue in response to Mr Bradley’s assertion, that is the lack of morals that Machiavelli is famous for advocating, not the lack of religion. I would also argue that Iago is in fact an unbeliever – in times such as Shakespeare’s, when Europe was undergoing the after effects of  religious reformation, only a few years since the French finished their 40 year civil war over religion, people were very sensitive over the subject and Shakespeare would have needed to make it very clear that Iago was in fact religious in the same way that we know Othello is religious. Iago’s lack of expression over his beliefs is a more significant piece of evidence than his lack of expression against religion. It can therefore be argued very strongly that Iago is a ‘Machiavellian villain’. From the outset of the play Iago is presented as a; manipulator, intriguer, mischief – maker, calumniator, mocker, deceiver, liar, envier, poison of men’s minds, figure of duplicity and of deliberate hypocrisy. He cheats and lies to people who trust him to get what he wants.

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In the beginning of the play, Iago’s efforts are concentrated on Michael Cassio, a man promoted above Iago to a position Iago felt he was overlooked for. “Mere prattle with out practice is all his soldiership.” Iago seeks to disgrace Cassio so he falls from grace in Othello’s eyes leaving the position free for Iago. Iago confesses freely in act 1 scene 1 that he is the very epitome of a Machiavellian villain:

        “I follow him to serve my turn upon him….

        ……

        Others there are

        Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,

        Keep yet their hearts attending on ...

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