Othello's Soliloquy is as Real Today - Tortured Thoughts Seek a Scapegoat

Othello, Wikimedia Commons

One of the most graphic expositions of jealousy flowed from Shakeaspeare's pen when he wrote "Othello."

Othello's struggles for an explanation for the red mist of jealousy that consumes him leads through confusion, despair and madness to the need for someone or something to blame. It was written hundreds of years ago, yet is a lesson in modern-day psychology.

Othello's soliloquy betrays his extreme confusion, so that the reader/audience may anticipate the conflict to come. We know all too well that such extremes of passion are explosive and bound to erupt into physical violence. Othello's plight seems to be primarily one of confusion, indicated by his conception of Desdemona as the wonderful lady he married, who, in his eyes, turned into a deceitful wanton. His frustration drives him mad. 

It is clear from the start to the reader that jealousy is part of that confusion. 

"I had rather be a toad / And live upon the vapour of a dungeon / Than keep a corner in the thing I love / For others' uses."

The speed with which Othello's thoughts flit from one image to another intensifies the sense of insanity. These shifts in viewpoint, the changing rhythms of speech that inform those shifts, the alterations in pace and the use of run-on lines, all contribute to his loss of direction. 

There is the change from reflection "Haply for I am black..." to abruptness, "She's gone..."  Then he continues, "I am abus'd; and my relief / Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage."

Foreshadowing

The soliloquy foreshadows the future action in other specific ways. Of Iago, Othello says: 

"This fellow's of exeeding honesty." The phrase has already been used: "Whip me such honest knaves." The reader is primed to question the value of this word when expressed by Othello in the first line of the soliloquy. By convention, a soliloquy reveals the character's true feelings. We know from Othello's nobility that his belief in Iago is sincere and that Iago's mischief will wreak havoc upon Othello's state of mind and, therefore, his actions. Iago knows exactly how to manipulate Othello, but his view of woman's nature is very limited.

The soliloquy also expresses Othello's insecurity, which feeds his confusion and jealousy as he begins to search for explanations: 

"Haply, for I am black / And have not those soft parts of conversation / That chamberers have."  

Othello is only too aware that his life as a soldier has not prepared him for courting a high-born and beautiful woman. He laments, also, his loss of youth, "...for I am declined / Into the vale of years."  

We understand that his nobility and his achievements no longer give him the confidence that he can hold onto the thing that he most loves, and so, he feels hopeless. This hopelessness contributes to his desperate state of mind, fuelling the anger at being, in his own eyes, betrayed.

Tortured Thoughts Seek a Scapegoat

Shakespeare's use of animal similes and metaphors add strength to the language. Desdemona, as Othello's captive hawk, to be released to fend for herself in revenge for his apparent betrayal, is an image which shows how his tortured thoughts are turning upon themselves. We know that he will, in his passion, harm the woman he loves. His conviction that he would "rather be a toad" shows how far he has sunk in his own estimation and how repugnant he finds his condition. The reader knows that Othello is not only insecure, he has also lost his reason, and so insanity must follow.

In the final few lines, he looks for a scapegoat and blames his situation on fate.

"Yes 'tis the plague of great ones; / Prerogatived are they less than the base / 'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death:"  

He has abnegated responsibility for his condition, which is another consequence of losing his reason. The violence of the language, for example, such words as "plague", "base", and "destiny unshunnable" shows the extreme violence of his thoughts. In the next line, the metaphor "forked plague" serves a similar purpose, revealing the force of his emotive language. "Even then this forked plague is fated to us." There may be a biblical allusion here, in the forked tongue of the evil serpent. The image is made all the more shocking by Othello's conviction that such a fate begins at conception, "When we do quicken."

The implication is that he can do nothing about it except tear himself apart, once again, foreshadowing the inevitability of the bloody confrontation to come.

Source:

• Shakespeare, William, Othello, the Moor of Venice, 1603.