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The Economics of Iago and Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

Robert B. Heilman*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle 5

Extract

When Iago addresses to Othello his homily on values—“Good name ... / Is the ... jewel of their souls. / Who steals my purse steals trash” (III.iii.155-157)—he chooses words so compact and memorizable that they have come into a kind of separate fame, and, like any other purple passage, seem a special added attraction, displayed for admiration during a brief pause in the forward movement, But these quotable lines are closely integrated into the drama, for they imply much that has taken place and much of the character of Iago. They are to be read, not as a neat package of proverbial wisdom, but as an index and a recapitulation, which is to say that their dramatic life extends far beyond the scene in which they occur.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953

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References

page 555 note 1 The terminology of wealth appears in literal ways, of course. Cessio announces, The riches of the ship is come on shore!“ (II.i.83) and gives a clown ”a poor piece of gold“ (III.i.25-26). Iago describes Bianca as -A huswife that by selling her desires / Buys herself bread and clothes” (IV.i .95-96). The first Senator is sure that the Turks will not neglect “an attempt of ease and gain” to risk a “danger profitless” (I.iii.29-30). Then there are such metaphorical uses ss the following. Brabantio sarcastically calls Desdemons “jewel” (I.iii.195) and remarks on the double injury to him “That to pay grief must of poor patience borrow” (215). Desdemooa refers to Othello's “dear absence” (I.iii.260). Conversely, Othello assures Iago that if he did not love Desdemona be would not surrender his free condition “For the sea's worth” (I.ii.28). Iago says to Othello, apropos of Cassio's attitude to Desdemona, “And to sea how be prizes the foolish woman your wife!” (IV.i. 185-186)

page 555 note 2 On some occasions, also, they minister to the theme of “private property In human affections” which Kenneth Burke uses la interpreting Othello in “Othello:An Essay to Illustrate a Method,” Hudson Rev., IV (1951), 165-203, esp. pp. 166 ff.

page 556 note 3 Cf. Bake:“Property fear” theft because It is theft“ (p. 167).

page 556 note 4 The Dathpmtnl of Shakespeare's, Imagery (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1951), pp. 83,140,143,149,152,163,170. The list is not exhaustive. Clemen also has a telling comment on the general sense of interrelatedness of all the parts which is created by the Imagery (p. 224).

page 556 note 5 For instance, note how effectively Othello's bitter dismissal of Desdemona at the end of their brothel episode reverses his style of addressing her earlier when they were retiring after arriving safely in Cyprus. His earlier words of love were:

Come, my dear love.

The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;

The profit's yet to come 'tween me and you. (II.iii.8-10)

In the later scene the “profit” has, by Implication, taken place, and Othello sardonically completes the “purchase”-'There's money for your pains“ (IV ii.93).

page 556 note 6 Cf. Clemen, pp. 70,127. 159 ff., 199 ff.

page 556 note 7 Pages 162, 180, 224. There are other comments on pp. 223 and 224.

page 556 note 8 clemen, p. 223.

page 557 note 9 He sneers at Cessio aa “debitor and creditor, this counter-caster” (I.i.31). Ostensibly warning Othello against Jealousy, he discourses with philosophic mien:

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;

But riches fineless is as poor as winter

To him that ever fears he shall be poor, (III.iii. 172-174)

And, pretending to mourn the unhappy fate of honesty in the world, he says to Othello ironically, “I thank you for this profit” (III.iii.379).

page 557 note 10 Even Burke, who usually squeezes every possible meaning out of whatever character or scene he discusses, seems not to go as far as possible with Roderigo (p. 180).

page 557 note 11 Roderigo's experience varies the theme of loss, his misery in the disappointment of a very tenuous hope illuminating the vast anguish of a men who. She Othello, undergoes the deprivation of a joy not merely aspired to but apparently possessed for life. Likewise Roderigo is at once a victim and a self-deceiver. Shakespeare often uses such “analogous” action, as Francis Fergusson calls it in The Idea of a Theatre (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1949), pp. 104 ff. See also the following note.

page 557 note 12 Iago faces two analogous but dissimilar problems: Making Othello disbelieve in a love that is actually his, and making Roderigo believe in a love that can never be his. Iago is ingenious enough to adopt utterly opposite personal facades for his different victims: in prying Othello loose from the truth, be appears high-minded, “honest,” saddened by the frailty of women; in attaching Roderigo to an expectation that can never become a truth, be enunciates a cynical disbelief in the fidelity of women. This is the sleight-of-hand of a fornidable entrepreneur. Burke lists other ways in which Iago's skill in deceit is established before be takes on Othello fp. 173).

page 558 note 13 In his acting edition of 1876 Wilhelm Oechelhäuser stressed the “plebeian” character of Iago (quoted, Variorum ed., p. 442).

page 559 note 14 Iago also calls Bianca “this trash” (v.i. 85). Although his immediate concern is to impli-cate her in the Cessio-Roderlgo brawl, lego's term indicates his actual evaluation of her. He cannot or will not understand her love for Cassio.

page 560 note 15 His corepeteoce for the lieutenancy cannot be argued fron the feet that Othello later give, it to him. Othello's, demotion of Cassio is disciplinary, and he has every intention of returning Cassio to the position when it is politically feasible (m.i.50-53). Iago gets the lieutenancy only at a by-product of his leading Othello to believe that Cassio is Desdemona's. adulterous lover, when be has made Othello his creature psychologically and driven him into “emotional insanity,” so that Othello thinks Iago his only dependable friend—a case analogous to what we now call “government by crony.”

page 560 note 16 Cf. Iago'ssneer at “bookish theories” with the rather common tendency in America to disparage “theorists,” “intellectuals,” “brain-trusters,” etc.

page 561 note 17 Cf. Robert B. Heilman. “More Fair Than Black: Light and Dark in Othello Essays inCriticism, I (1951), 315-335.

page 562 note 18 Burke relates these images to the property-motif (p. 167).

page 565 note 19 cf Chaucer's reve: “To yeve and lene lym of his owene good / And have a thank, and yet a gowne and hood.”

page 567 note 20 The archetype of the devoted follower has undergone a singular transformation in our day. In a nominally non-hierarchic society it cannot be literally meaningful, to that in popular literature it it reduced to a sentimental stereotype. The pertinence of the stereotype suggests a psychic sneak back into social order which it is not permissible to admire publicly.

page 570 note 21 cfBurke's explanation of Emilia's role as “protecting” the “tragic engrossment” by presenting the “low” while the audience, “by the rule of the game,” wishes to be identified with the “high” (p. 185). This is very shrewd. But I suggest that even without rules of the game the audience wants to take the “high,” provided that its terms are acceptable-i.e., not pompous, peremptory, or as here, so youthful as to make Desdemona's partisan identify himself with more Ingenuousness than he finds comfortable. Emilia gives him an alternative style to tie to, thus preventing resistance to Desdemona's values as well as to her manner

page 570 note 22 George Lyman Kittredge callsEmilia's argument “unassailable” (Othello, Boston: Ginn, 1941, p. 217). But Kittredge strangely reads the argument thus: that a misbehaving husband “cannot blame” a wife for misbehaving similarly! Emilia isn't saving this; rather She falls into the now commonplace justification-by-cause.