The Moor's Madness

How could the Moorish general possibly fall victim to deception, when even Iago admits about him: "IAGO: [.] The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not, is of a constant, loving, noble nature, and I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona a most dear husband. " ( Othello - Act II, Scene I). What was is it, within his own self or from the outside, that undermined this monolyth the entire Venetian republic leaned against? This warrior who describes himself in terms such as these: "OTHELLO: [.] Rude am I in my speech, and little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace. "; or: " And little of this great world can I speak, more than pertains to feats of broil and battle. " ( Othello - Act I, Scene III), who was raised from early childhood in the soldiers' camps, this fair man who loves order and discipline - how could he fall a pray to the web drawn around him by his flag-bearer in order to destroy him? Victorious in so many battles in which the chances of success depended not on his arm, but on his mind and on its capacity to raise hundreds upon hundreds of men like a living wall before the enemy, did he perchance allow himself to be defeated by a man cleverer than himself? by a strategist more skilled? by a more experienced or better advised military commander? No - Othello was not defeated in confrontation, Othello did not see his opponent. The latter crept under his skin, beat him from the abysses of his own thought, urged him to think according to a pattern with a geography unknown to him, and finally pushed him into the quagmire of despair. Othello was conquered by the incomprehension of his own thinking.

Before he comes to that, however, his opponent is a man in flesh and blood, with a face all smile and candour, who follows him wherever he goes - he dogs the Moor's steps, so to speak, and praises himself in the mirror while muttering through his teeth: "IAGO: [.] I am not what I am " ( Othello - Act I, Scene I), which allows him to take this unconceivable statement even further: " .In following him, I follow but myself. " ( ibidem ). He also wittily conjures the Lord as his witness that he does so not from love, nor from any sense of duty, but only adopts such a behaviour in order to achieve his purpose.

If we analyze the general's speech, we notive that he often uses antonyms, which gives us a hint about how he sees the world: people can be divided into good and bad; his sword protects good and eliminates evil from everyday life. It is, indeed, a rather soldierly way of putting things, yet simple, practical, and honest.

To understand Iago's perspective on the world, we must resort to the new phrase that names this very figure of speech by means of which he characterizes himself: "I am not what I am". It occurs unexpectedly often, so what is this figure of speech? As mentioned before, it describes one single object with two simultaneously opposed aspects, while antonyms describe two distinct and opposed objects. We have called it antonymical dychotomy. While antonyms obviously contribute to clarifying reality, the antonymical dychotomies cannot but make reality ever more confusing. Antonyms are in the service of logical thinking; in whose service are antonymical dychotomies? The answer is not far behind. For now, suffice it to say that Iago's perspective builds up a world with two simultaneously opposed aspects.

Iago not only embellishes his speech with antonymical dychotomies, but, as quoted above in his self-praising, behaves according to their pattern, that is, he says that he pretends to love the Moor. Hence, his love is no love. From the play's further development, we find out that his love is actually fierce hatred. Do we not recognize here the many structures that we found amazing in the previous chapter? So not only Iago, but a great many Shakespearian characters behave in a dychotomic-antonymical manner, in other words they put on masks opposed to their nature, their feelings, and their thoughts.

Not even in this Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice , is Iago a single case. There is a second character that proves incapable of a single-minded thinking. From the point of view of Othello's affection, Desdemona is the embodiment of peace, of quiet, she is the harbour where the warrior takes refuge. From the point of view of the play, she is both a cornerstone and a bone of contention for the general's psychological balance. It is easily noticeable that, once defined by Iago, the dychotomic-antonymical pattern is already projected onto the Moor's destiny, onto his most intimate and every-day concerns, onto the person whom he overwhelms with all his love, the woman who embodies, for him, the all-incumbent reality and symbolizes life - in a word, onto Desdemona.

Brabantio, her father, ends his speech in the Senate with essential advice for the unseen war he is about to begin with his flag-bearer: "BRABANTIO: Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: she has deceived her father, and may thee " ( Othello - Act I, Scene III). The confrontation between the virtual image of a chaste Desdemona, existing in Othello's mind, and the treacherous image of the same, presented by her own father, defines a behaviour that confirms the very words she speaks.

These are the circumstances in which the Moor puts up a heroic defence against the treachery of his flag-bearer who does not shrink from stating his "double knavery" ( ibidem ) once again.

The political game concocted by the intriguer is simple: "IAGO: Two things are to be done: my wife must move for Cassio. [.] Myself the while to draw the Moor apart. " ( Othello - Act II, Scene III). To the couple Othello-Desdemona he opposes the couple of his own marriage as a double-headed hydra about to undermine the unity between the former two spouses. The touchstone of the stratagem is Othello's lieutenant, Cassio, urged by the same plotteer to bring disturbance to the peace of Cyprus . Symbolically speaking, Cassio is an alter ego of the general. Downright honest, like the latter, he too falls a prey to the flag-bearer's intrigues, in a kind of general rehearsal - an obviously reccurrent technique - of the finishing stroke aimed at Othello, and replaces Desdemona's husband as commanding officer of Cyprus . Cassio represents Othello's honesty. In this last passage quoted, the word "Moor" refers to the general's evil-oriented disposition. The two actions mentioned by the flag-bearer obviously aim in two different directions. It is our opinion that the sentences describe, from a symbolical point of view, only Othello himself, at a deeper level than the one strictly dealing with the facts: they are about his good- versus evil-oriented dispositions - both likely to be directed in such a way as to create between them a hiatus that may allow the appearance of a dominant group.

A survey by Leon Levi tchi proves helpful when it comes to better understanding the intriguer's efforts to obliterate the positive aspect of the Moor's personality in the latter's own eyes (from a symbolical point of view): " OTHELLO: [.] Is he [Cassio] not honest? - IAGO: Honest, my lord! - OTHELLO: Honest! ay, honest. - IAGO: My lord, for aught I know. - OTHELLO: What dost thou think? - IAGO: Think, my lord! - OTHELLO: 'Think, my lord!'. " ( Othello - Act III, Scene III). In this fragment analyzed by Leon Levitchi, as well as in this following one, the verb 'think' occurs in the exchange of cues between the two characters with two opposed meanings: "IAGO: For Michael Cassio, I dare be sworn I think that he is honest. - OTHELLO: I think so too. - IAGO: Men should be what they seem; or those that be not, would they might seem none! - OTHELLO: Certain, men should be what they seem. - IAGO: Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man " ( ibidem ). Spoken by Iago, 'I think' means 'as I reckon, in my opinion'; spoken by Othello, it means 'I believe, I am convinced': Iago does not say "I dare be sworn that he is honest", he says "I dare be sworn I think that he is honest".

As we may see, Iago takes over Othello's thought patterns, even his words, in order to facilitate the mysterious mutation he endeavours to accomplish in the logical structure of his opponent's mind. In these passages quoted above, there is a confrontation between the two thought patterns: Othello's straightforward thinking, that is unaware of the danger about to fall upon him, and Iago's oblique thinking, that is always on the watch, like a predator, a thinking that allows for two faces of the same reality, according to the circumstances, as illustrated by Iago's use of the vocabulary. This psychological confrontation is worth keeping in mind in order to understand the ensuing argument.

The thought pattern advanced by Iago reaches the field of general truths, in its voracious need to consume all that is thinkable: "IAGO: 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. " ( ibidem ).

Finally, Othello assimilates the image of a two-faced reality, by taking over the pattern suggested to him. How happy must Iago be! Let us notice, together with the general, how he assimilates the flag-bearer's metaphor, though slightly altered: "OTHELLO: [.] He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n, let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all " ( ibidem ). Hence, the flag-bearer was able to infiltrate not only a dychotomic-antonymical vision of the world into the general's mind, but also his own generalizing, therefore all-emcompassing ways of putting things. With few exceptions, the Moor plays the game of the mephistophelian Iago, this Merlin of Venice. Here we are, half-way through the play. Let us follow, step by step, the psychological mutations that the flag-bearer has managed to achieve up to this first victory.

Iago shams honesty; he knows that his master grants it to him. Iago simulates prolonged pondering, fear of thoughtless haste, solemn and just simplicity - all attributes of the Moor's thinking. From the very omphalos of the latter's mind begins venom to spread. Iago himself assumes the role of a Trojan horse: "IAGO: [.] Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false; as where's that palace whereinto foul things sometimes intrude not?. " ( ibidem ). His scruples make him think it is impossible that the temptation of meanness should not exist even in a man as "clean" as he is, as it exists in everyone; at least, this is how he depicts himself. His record is so good as to allow his innuendo to be accepted as gold of the highest quality. But it is a gold presented, without exception, in the form of either two-faced coins, warm on one side, cold on the other, or equivocal aphorisms to which he soon gives a psychological name with affective implications - he calls them "doubt": IAGO: [.] O, what damned minutes tells he o'er who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves! ", after he has warned his master: " O, beware, my lord, of jealousy. " ( ibidem ).

To have Othello assimilate this new imago mundi as well he can, Iago insists, he repeats the same ideas in the guise of new words, he inverts them, ties and unties them, distorts them, only to finally put them together again in such order and with such meaning as he desires and finds useful. The blameless Othello rejects his flag-bearer's bait, but not strongly enough: he barely struggles, for the snake has already got to him: "OTHELLO: [.] I'll have some proof. " ( ibidem ). Iago, however, ignores his painful call. After having presented his master with an abstract model of a dychotomic-antonymical view of the world, he supplies him with practical details of how such a Weltanschauung may be appropriated: "IAGO: [.] I speak not yet of proof. Look to your wife. I know our country disposition well; in Venice they do let heaven see the pranks they dare not show their husbands. " ( ibidem ). The generalization in these last two lines was necessary. It is a new trap for the general who should not feel alone; Iago suggests to him that his honest wife's dishonesty is bound to be discovered by everyone, since this is how things work in Venice and, presumably, in the entire world.

Then Iago sinks the dagger even deeper into the open wound, he rubs it in by alluding to the key-words uttered in the Senate by Brabantio, Desdemona's father, because the opinion revealed in them, about the Moor's wife being two-faced, actually is the flag-bearer's ultimate purpose. Let us recall that Desdemona represents a lot more than a wife - she is, in Othello's eyes, the symbol of reality: "IAGO: She did deceive her father, marrying you; and when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks, she loved them most. - OTHELLO: And so she did. - IAGO: [.] She that, so young, could give out such a seeming, to seal her father's eyes up close as oak. " ( ibidem ). In so doing, Iago makes it easier for the condemned to receive the finishing stroke. He works with a mechanic's carefulness, lubricating with the finest oil each and every new part of the machinery he puts together.

But it is not enough for Iago to be believed. It does not fit his purpose that the new Weltanschauung he introduces be assimilated just as simply as a human body would if it received a new, artificial heart and went on using it as if nothing had changed in its structure. No, Iago needs to set in motion the usual crisis that accompanies a dychotomic-antonymical thinking and upsets the intellectual balance, because the uncertainty brought about by a reality with two simultaneously opposed faces is the weakest ground life may be built upon. He does not simply want to see the general torn by jealousy, he wants to destroy him. This is why he interferes with the psychological process, by speeding it up. He needs to do so, since Othello cannot possibly be jealous, being so common-sensical, as Mitya Karamazov meditates: "Jealousy! 'Othello was not jealous, he was trustful', observed Pushkin. And that remark alone is enough to show the deep insight of our great poet. Othello's soul was shattered and his whole outlook clouded simply because his ideal was destroyed . But Othello did not begin hiding, spying, peeping. He was trustful. On the contrary, he had to be led up, pushed on, excited with great difficulty before he could entertain the idea of deceit. The truly jealous man is not like that. It is impossible to picture to oneself the shame and moral degradation to which the jealous man can descend without a qualm of conscience. And yet it's not as though the jealous were all vulgar and base souls. On the contrary, a man of lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full of self-sacrifice, may yet hide under tables, bribe the vilest people and be familiar with the lowest ignominy of spying and eavesdropping". Here is, however, someone ready to drive Othello towards doing all these wretched actions. It is Iago, the man who lets his acquaintances believe that he pretends to be meaner than he is, in order to conceal the fact that he is meaner than he pretends to be, as Kenneth Muir puts it. Let us follow his elaborate technique of driving the Moor crazy: "IAGO: I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits. - OTHELLO: Not a jot, not a jot. - IAGO: I' faith, I fear it has. I hope you will consider what is spoke comes from my love. But I do see you're moved. I am to pray you not to strain my speech to grosser issues nor to larger reach than to suspicion. - OTHELLO: I will not. - IAGO: Should you do so, my lord, my speech should fall into such vile success as my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend. My lord, I see you're moved. - OTHELLO: No, not much moved: I do not think but Desdemona's honest " ( Othello - Act III, Scene III). The general's retorts deny his inner struggle, but not entirely, so Iago attacks again and again, he keeps pushing and uses the same technique by which he persuaded Roderigo, before sailing for Cyprus, to sell his fortune and turn it into money: he alternately states his community of interests with the man he is talking to and suggests the idea he wants to see enforced. This is how he creates the framework of psychological imbalance that eventually overwhelms the Moor. The general staggers under his blows.

Driven by his diabolical Nestor, he begins to grasp two antonymical aspects of his beloved: "OTHELLO: [.] .we can call these delicate creatures ours ", says he about the wives in general, then feels compelled to add: " .and not their appetites. " ( ibidem ). He gropes his way through the geography of this newly-found illogical logic. He experiments with dychotomic-antonymical speech. He does not yet master his new wording, but manages to utter dychotomic-antonymical series: "OTHELLO: [.] I think my wife be honest and think she is not; I think that thou art just and think thou art not. I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh as Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black as mine own face. " ( ibidem ).

If we did not mention sooner the most important cue spoken in the Senate, it is because we kept it to be brought to light in due course. Here it is, at this most convenient place. The Duke addresses Brabantio, Desdemona's father: "DUKE OF VENICE: [.] Your son-in-law is far more fair than black " ( Othello - Act I, Scene III). The Moor's emotional wavering quoted above introduces a fresh element regarding the dychotomic-antonymical framework. The fair and honest Desdemona, the embodiment of reality in Othello's eyes, now has her name (equivalent to her face) "begrimed and black" as his. In other words, if Othello himself is "more fair than black", Desdemona has turned "more black than fair". According to G. Wilson-Knight, it is a characteristic of The Tragedy of Othello that separation and contrast manage to replace unity and harmony. Iago has achieved his purpose. Our reader probably remembers that we have discussed the line "poor and content is rich and rich enough" etc., an antonymical dychotomy that Othello expresses as his own with almost the same words as Iago uses. The latter utters this cue before he introduces doubt as a system of thought. Othello adopts it as soon as he wonders, upon entering the stage: "OTHELLO: Ha! ha! False to me? " ( Othello - Act III, Scene III). He has not been instigated by his flag-bearer any more! He has been away and far from the latter and meets him only by chance. Yet Othello is suspicious. He has learned that there is such thing as suspicion. He has got accustomed to the pattern of dychotomical-antonymical thinking.

Othello's reason is staggering. With her childish game, Desdemona unwillingly challenges him. The jealous husband asks to see the handkerchief: "OTHELLO: Fetch't, let me see't. - DESDEMONA: Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now. This is a trick to put me from my suit. Pray you, let Cassio be received again " ( Othello - Act III, Scene IV). We know only too well that her pressing request is in fact a "trick" meant to protect herself of her husband's request that she should fetch the handkerchief. And yet, she blames the "trick" on Othello's request, while the latter suspects that she is actually "tricking" him, which plays havoc with the Moor's entire system of values. It follows that even he can be taken for a two-faced man! And if he can be regarded as such, is it not possible that he be one?!

All of Othello's awareness falls to pieces. He realizes that there is something in his mind that does not serve him any more. His judgment fluctuates. After a series of cues revolving around one and the same word, "handkerchief", he finally utters: "OTHELLO: Away! " ( ibidem ) and exits, although he was addressing Desdemona.

Pushed by Iago's infamous "help", Othello goes so far as to mistake abstract elements with matter-of-fact ones, he equals hiw wife's handkerchief with her honour: "IAGO: [.] But if I give my wife a handkerchief. - OTHELLO: What then? - IAGO: Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers, she may, I think, bestow't on any man. - OTHELLO:
She is protectress of her honour too: may she give that? " ( Othello - Act IV, Scene I).

Desdemona, in turn, discerns a fundamental tension in her husband's reasoning: "DESDEMONA: [.] My lord is not my lord. ", says she, again in a dychotomic-antonymical manner, then: "[.] Something, sure, of state, either from Venice , or some unhatch'd practise made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him, hath puddled his clear spirit. " ( Othello - Act III, Scene IV).

Proofs begin to pile up, of the fact that the Moor can no longer master his own words to convey his thoughts like any normal, sound-minded man. He can no longer express his feelings. His thinking is more and more adrift. He rolls his eyes and mumbles like a demented man: "OTHELLO: [.] .Handkerchief. confessions. handkerchief!. To confess, and be hanged for his labour. First, to be hanged, and then to confess. I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction. It is not words that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips. Is't possible?. Confess. handkerchief!. O devil!. (Falls in a trance)" ( Othello - Act IV, Scene I). What we are dealing here with is the famous fainting called epilectic fit. The linguistic demonstration in the quoted passages is enough to substantiate the psychical imbalance anyway.

Iago allows him no respite. He is "is a philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills has more point in it than an alliteration or an antithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the peace of a family a better thing than watching the palpitations in the heart of a flea in a microscope; who plots the ruin of his friends as an exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to prevent ennui. His gaiety, such as it is, arises from the success of his treachery; his ease from the torture he has inflicted on others. He is an amateur of tragedy in real life; and instead of employing his invention on imaginary characters, or long-forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution". He is an Ivan Karamazov, a Lafcadio avant-la-lettre . No wonder, therefore, that the general accepts to play his game: "OTHELLO: [.] I will be found most cunning in my patience. " ( Othello - Act IV, Scene I).

The dychotomic-antonymical symbolism gradually conquers the inanimate world. After the handkerchief, even the bed displays two simultaneously antonymical "moral" qualities: "IAGO: [.] .strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated " ( ibidem ). The "contamination" of the bed is so vividly underlined because the idea lingers in Othello's soul that it is in fact the bed of his pure love.

In such a world, one cannot react as a normal human being any longer. Madness alternates with ever fewer and shorter moments of lucidity. Here is a further sign of incongruity, similar to that quoted a while ago: "OTHELLO: [.] I am commanded home. Get you away; I'll send for you anon " ( ibidem ). Not only the lack of coherence of Othello's thinking should be noticed here, but, if we consider the couple Othello-Desdemona to be a whole, as we have done before, and we stress the fact that the character mentions one direction of movement for himself and the opposite direction for his wife, then we should also stress his final attempt at uniting the two roads. Hence, although pervaded by the dychotomic-antonymical system of thinking, Othello suffers because he misses his original Weltanschauung , the image of the world seen as a unity.

But the outcome of the crisis approaches. Othello's pathological state becomes visible to anyone. " Are his wits safe? Is he not light of brain? " wonders Lodovico, Brabantio's relative dispatched from Venice , about the man he used to know under quite different auspices. He adds: " Is this the nature whom passion could not shake? " ( ibidem ) and so on and so forth.

The night of the general ends up with the symbolical obliteration of the dychotomic-antonymical reality, that is, with the murder of Desdemona. The building of this dychotomic-antonymical reality rests not only with the language and the evolution of thinking, but, all the more so, with the architecture of the tragedy that uses bipolar oppositional and situational structures.

Romanian aesthetician Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu remarked: "Shakespeare introduced us to the contrast between the sublime and the ridiculous, between weeping and laughing, a contrast that we come across all the time in every-day life". He had noticed the technique of juggling with antonyms. Here is a passage in which the contrasting elements are two faces of one and the same experience, namely of jealousy. The passage is subsequent to the fainting, but previous to the dialogue between Cassio and Iago, that the Moor witnessed from a hiding-place, therefore it follows the climax of the main character's crisis: "OTHELLO: I will chop her into messes: cuckold me! - IAGO: O, 'tis foul in her. - OTHELLO: With mine officer! - IAGO: That's fouler. - OTHELLO: Get me some poison, Iago. " ( Othello - Act IV, Scene I). Indeed, jealousy may wear both masks depicted in the text, the tragic and the ludicrous one.

As we know, the play starts with the announcement of a betrayal (which foretells the most elaborate dychotomic-antonymical structure of the text): "BRABANTIO: What profane wretch art thou? - IAGO: I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs " ( Othello - Act I, Scene I). Rabelais' words sound despicable in Iago's mouth. As the play develops, the benevolent defender of Desdemona's chastity proves to be the genuine traitor, while the exposed "betrayer" is in fact his innocent victim. Hence, the tragedy as a whole represents a situational dychotomic-antonymical structure reduplicated at a smaller scale, as follows: Iago meets "his good friend" Roderigo at Desdemona's father's house; the "good friend" later dies by the hand of Iago himself!

In the second scene of Act I, Othello is being looked for by two groups, one led by Brabantio, the other by Cassio. Since it is dark, both groups light their way with torches: a bunch of torches look for the traitor in the name of the necessary justice; the other bunch look for the defender in the name of the just war; hence, there is light in the name of mistrust and light in the name of trust.

The Senate has two points on its agenda: the conflict between Venice and the Turks and that between Brabantio and Othello. As far as the former is concerned, the city places all its hope in Othello, the providential man; as regards the latter, Othello is seen as the worst of men.

The situational dychotomic-antonymical structures are woven with symbolic parallels. Act I foretells a war. Act II starts with the description of an uprising of the elements, of a storm. The faithful Cassio, an alter ego of the Moor is separated from his general by the gale. Othello is left alone at the mercy of the unleished elements. Cassio embodies his faithfulness, honesty, and bravery. There is a symbolism here that offers itself to be deciphered: separated from his faithfulness, his righteous character, his thinking that conceives of reality as a unity (Cassio never renounces all these), the general is left alone at the mercy of the hostile elements (that is, of Iago). Othello is not the only character whose jealousy is being challenged. Bianca is jealous, too, but in a completely different way. Her reactions represent one of the aspects of the dychotomic-antonymical structure of jealousy, while the other is experienced by the Moor: one is only too natural, the other pathological.

Othello plans, together with Iago, to kill his own integrity, under the traits of Cassio. The killing, though incomplete, seems a general rehearsal for the sacrificing of Desdemona. The fact that the lieutenant does not die confirms, from a symbolical point of view, the general's capacity to regain his personality, even if mutilated. Mutilated! Let us remember Cassio exclaiming: "CASSIO: I am maim'd for ever. " ( Othello - Act V, Scene I). Othello himself similarly exclaims: "OTHELLO: [.] Man but a rush against Othello's breast, and he retires. " ( Othello - Act V, Scene II).

Othello's skin colour has always been a touchstone for world criticism. G.M. Matthews explains in an essay why the literary scholars refuse to discuss Othello's skin colour: because it would be historically incorrect to consider skin colour, in the sense we apply to this notion today, as being however relevant for the contemporaries of Elizabeth I or Jacob I and also because saying that Othello is a play about races would be tantamount to saying that Henry V were but a play about fatmen. The critic's conclusion is that Othello is not a story about jealousy placed in some historical moment, but an example of the love between a black man and a white woman. He goes on quoting R.B. Heilman's analyses of the contrast between light and darkness, both in the play's imagery and in its structure, and states that the unavoidable effect of this opposition (one overlooked by Heilman) is the stress laid on the contrast between races, between Othello and his comrades. Matthews sees this contrast as the key to the understanding of the play, as its most significant feature (which does not mean that the whole play could be reduced to it, of course).

G.M. Matthews' idea is worth retaining with all its supporting arguments, although expounded in such conflicting terms. He claims, basically, that the difference of colour between Othello and the other characters - and, should we say, even between Othello and himself (E.B. Heilman brings once again to attention the words of the Duke of Venice: " Your son-in-law is far more fair than black") - represents the structural essence of the play, its cornerstone, its fundamental dychotomic-antonymical structure. We cannot support, however, the statement that the tragedy is an example of the love between a black man and a white woman. It is awkward to say that Shakespeare supplied examples. This is what we do, who have been struggling for four-and-a-half centuries to comprehend him; all he did is to create a universe parallel to the one we live in.

Othello's colour represents the simplest dychotomic-antonymical structure to be found in the play, the one that engenders all the other similar structures. This is so because he, who is black, proves to be the whitest, when it comes to character, while the white men may be guessed to be black from the same point of view. Moreover, Othello sees Desdemona, his embodiment of reality, as having the blackest of souls.

The rich accumulation of languistic and situational dychotomic-antonymical structures in this play draws any reader's attention on the possibility of the existence of a mechanism of dychotomic-antonymical thinking. We may wonder why Shakespeare put his great art at work so much to underline it, why he chose to present it particularly in contrast with the usual logical thinking, unless he wanted to highlight a message. What connection could there be between this message and the "jealousy" or "betrayed confidence" mentioned at the beginning of this chapter? The play's message, using jealousy as an excuse (the appearance of an antonymical dychotomy in one's beloved), highlights the suffering implicit in any process of knowledge, the perception of reality as being dychotomic-antonymical, hence an unavoidable castigation of the values established up to this stage. The passage from one form of knowledge to another implies a discipline which is unknown to Othello (hence his intellectual failure). This discipline is described by the same Iago, the master psychologist of the tragedy: "IAGO: [.] Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. ( Othello - Act I, Scene III).

What Othello lacks is the will to know to the bitter end. If he remained firmly anchored in his own system of thought even when challenged by Iago's arguments, Othello would keep himself within the truth, that is, he would be aware that he is actually not betrayed. By adopting the new system of thought suggested to him by his flag-bearer, only his will and power of judgment can still help him rediscover that truth. He reaches it indeed, but only after he is defeated.

From a certain point of view, experience and knowledge overlap. It is our free will that helps us stress one or the other. Othello is defeated in his struggle for knowledge because he stresses life, experience.

The tragedy of the Moor of Venice is the tragedy of a man with a straight gaze who is up against a false universe presented to him as dychotomic-antonymical, it is the tragedy of morality fighting amorality, it is the tragedy of the knowledge of a world that keeps showing its concealed face, it is the tragedy of one's shift from an older system of thought to one new and unfit to one's nature, it is the tragedy of a man who has to choose knowledge when his earlier and ultimate choice was life.

The play, therefore, is a tragedy of initiation. Let us end this chapter with a splendid and conclusive antonymical dychotomy, the epitaph of the one-time Moor of Venice: "OTHELLO: I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee; no way but this: killing myself, to die upon a kiss " ( Othello - Act V, Scene II).

Linguistic repetition in Shakespeare's plays , in Leon Levitchi, Studii shakespeariene ( Shakespearian Studies ), Cluj-Napoca, Dacia Publishing House, 1976, pp. 46-75.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov , Book 8, Chapter 3 (English translation by Constance Garnett, taken from www.bibliomania.com ).

In Shakespeare the Professional ( London , Heinemann), reprinted after Figurative and Wholesome , an unsigned article in The Times Literary Supplement , no. 3737, October 19 th , 1973 .

G. Wilson-Knight, The Othello Music , in Anne Bradby (ed.), Shakespeare Criticism , New Delhi, Atlantic, 2004.

William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays , London , C.H. Reynell, 1817 (excerpt taken from www.library.utoronto.ca ).

B.P. Hasdeu, The Late Postelnic [ Chancellor ] . An Introduction , in Shakespeare si opera lui. Texte critice ( Shakespeare and His Work. Critical Contributions ), Bucharest, World Literature Publishing House, 1964.

G.M. Matthews, Othello and the Dignity of Man , in Arnold Kettle (ed.), Shakespeare in a Changing World , London , 1971.



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