Othello as a Domestic Tragedy
The story and
theme of Othello is one that comes home to the business and bosoms of mankind
that again, is to say that Othello dramatizes an emotion with which we are
familiar, and which some of us might very well be expected to experience,
namely, the doubt and suspicion whether wives are always loyal in conjugal
relations—Or husbands, for that matters, jealousy in married life is a common
experience and therefore a play that deals with it might very well be regarded
as a domestic one. The problem of happiness in married life is closely related
with the harmony existing at home between husband and wife. And this is
precisely the harmony that Iago, in his aside, intends to destroy when he
exclaims. “I will set down the pegs that make this music,” this is what
he says as he sees Othello in raptures with Desdemona, and hears him say:
And this, and this, the greatest discords be.
That ever our
hearts will make.
That is how we
also see Othello on the stage with Desdemona in his arms as they both arrive in
Cyprus after the terrible stormy voyage they undertook from Venice. Othello is
playfully, yet passionately, kissing Desdemona and utters these words as he
does so. This is a domestic scene of exquisite joy and sweetness, and it is an
emotion, which we can share.
Besides this
principal theme, which is a domestic one, we meet with, in Othello the people
who are not far removed from us on social position. They are not kings and
queens and princes and princesses but common subjects of the state, where they
serve in several capacities. In other words, we can understand and share their
joys and sorrows; we are at home with them and their problems. Hence, it is
that note of intimacy is struck between the dramatis persona and us. This
account for the ‘domestic’ atmosphere of Othello. (The Moor of Venice)
It is interesting
to note that marital jealousy was a very popular theme on the
Elizabethan stage. Othello, thus, could very well be described as a domestic
and private life do not rise to the heights of great tragedy and that they lack
the emotive force of the latter where the figures belong to high life such of
kings and queens. It may be said of this criticism that it is not sound. As Dr.
Johnson long ago pointed out,
“Shakespeare is
always thinking primarily on men and their emotions however exalted their lives
on the worldly plane might be. Hamlet and Lear do not affect us because they
are kings and sons of kings but because they are mortals with all the errors
and weakness to which mortal life in there. Secondly, even if Othello and
Desdemona and Roderigo and Cassio do not belong on the political plane to the
same order as Hamlet and Lear do, they are still endowed with a dignity and
virtue, which do distance them from the merely average human nature, which we
ordinarily known. The agony and passion of Othello is jealousy, the pitiful
innocence and grace of the pleading Desdemona, the beauty and frankness of
Cassio, which even his worst enemy, Iago, has to acknowledge even Roderigo the
fool, with his worship of beauty, which Desdemona inspires these certainly
cannot be described as lacking in emotive force. If anything, their fate and
fortunes affect us most powerfully because we recognize in their natures, which
we share and understand. Life is life—whether lived in private or in public and
in Shakespeare’s tragedies in particular life is piled on life, and therefore
domestic story dealing with the private lives of common human nature is capable
of exciting feelings of pity and terror as powerful as those that are excited
by the lives of kings and queens. It all depends how life is dramatically
presented. Shakespeare is perfect because he knows how to exploit life at all
levels for the purpose of moving the hearts of his audience. Hence we conclude
that private life can be as emotionally stirring and uplifting as life on any
other level.”
The tragedy of
Othello and Desdemona is made by Shakespeare one of the most soul-stirring
subjects in this play. It is not merely the story of jealous husbands but the
type and symbol of fate, which causes the suffering of people who are really
innocent Othello a great figure worthy of our awe and admiration on account of
which we feel his tragedy as one that might as well happen to every one of us.
The turning of a loving husband into a vindictive Iago as the cause of tragic
misunderstanding. Iago is indeed the type of tragic fate. And his villainy is
so subtle that there is an element of universality in his evil nature.
So Othello is not
the type of domestic drama that appeals merely to our sense of pathos and
satire but it arouses in us the true emotions of pity and terror. It is not the
private life of married people that affects us in this tragedy, but the fate
and fortune of true lovers turned tragic by the forces of evil embodied in
Iago.
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