This is the draft of an article that will be published in The Hopkins Review later in 2020.
Then I taught the play myself to consecutive
classes of A-level English Literature students for years, from approximately 1985 to 2015. By then I had realized of course that the love story between Othello and Desdemona was complicated by issues of gender and race privilege and relative power status. We were now studying it in the contexts of Postcolonial and Feminist criticism and Identity politics.
A terrific film, ‘Internal Affairsʼ, starring Richard Gere, Andy Garcia and Nancy Travis, set in contemporary Los Angeles, came out in movie theatres in 1990, and seemed to me to be profoundly inspired by the story of Shakespeareʼs play. Gere played the Iago character, with finesse, suavity and a sort of sleek and smiling predatory consciencelessness. Garcia played a strong willed and strong minded Latino cop, the Othello character, in charge of investigating the criminal behaviour of the police department. Travis played his sumptuous, highly intelligent wife, the Desdemona character.
There are key differences in this modernized version. There is no Cassio figure. The hot-tempered and principled investigative officer is set up by the Iago figure, to suspect that his wife is being unfaithful to him with the very man he is investigating. Brilliant camerawork makes us, too, believe this is plausible. After all, what do we know about other peopleʼs private lives?
Garcia confronts Travis just as Othello does Desdemona in the play, in front of a group of her friends. In this case, at an elegant public restaurant. He asks her who she has had lunch with. She has been told by Gere, whom she believes is her husbandʼs colleague, not to say that she had met him. But Garcia has already seen them meeting at a cafe. So when she repeatedly denies it, he hits her, just as Othello does Desdemona when he thinks she is mocking him by sleeping with Cassio and laughing at his being recalled to Venice. She falls to the ground, in slow motion, in front of their horrified friends.
But unlike the 16thC play, the film shows the response of a modern woman. When Garcia returns to the apartment to pack and move out, his wife is there, and she confronts him directly with her anger at his violent and crazy behaviour. He shouts back and explains what has been going on in his mind. She tells him that if she had wanted to be with anyone else, she wouldnʼt be with him. Itʼs absolutely true. And they are able to break down the manufactured distrust with communication. Because she has standing in the relationship. Because they are partners. Because thereʼs respect and honesty, at the base of the connection.
In this modern telling of the story, there is no handkerchief. Itʼs contemporary America, so the material object thrust into the face of Garcia by Gere is a piece of ladies underwear which he has taken from this ladyʼs home without her knowledge, let alone her consent. The fact that he had it with him and tells her wounded husband Garcia to wipe his face with it (he has just bashed him in the face and he is bleeding) suggests to Garcia that intimacy has indeed taken place. But itʼs fabricated evidence. Literally. Only a man with a mind poisoned by lies would believe it.
That handkerchief, the piece of luxury fabric in ‘Othelloʼ, was the only item of circumstantial evidence Iago has to support his claim that Desdemona is intimate with Cassio. It is described as an item of exquisite beauty, luxury and value. An heirloom piece. Silk, hand embroidered with strawberries. The first gift of love and admiration Othello gave Desdemona when he was courting her.
This piece of material with ‘magic in the web of itʼ is embossed and adorned by layers of significance imposed by Othello himself. He initially describes it as a gift which was given to his mother by an Egyptian woman with a gift for psychic insight, a ‘charmerʼ. She said that if Othelloʼs mother kept it with her her husband would always be faithful to her, such was the power of this piece of embroidery. On her deathbed, Othelloʼs mother gave it to her son, and told him to give it to his own wife, when he decided to marry.
Othello did some lively embroidery of his own: he tells Desdemona, who by this time cannot quite remember where she last put the handkerchief, that the material for the handkerchief was made by ‘hallowʼdʼ silk worms, and it was dyed in liquid made from the heartʼs blood of virginal girls. The lady who sewed the embroidery in an inspired trance was a woman of great wisdom, 200 years old. In other words, this was a bespoke piece, if ever there was one.
In this uniqueness, it stands as a metaphor for the most valuable gift a woman brings her husband in a patriarchal society. Her fidelity, which ensures the integrity of the family bloodline.
Othello tells his wife that this handkerchief is the most valuable possession he has, and if she loses it, or carelessly gives it away, it would be the worst thing in the world. Extreme pressure. Of course, Desdemona had dropped the handkerchief when she had tried to use it to assist Othello when he had a headache, and he had thrust it away saying her napkin was too little to be of any use. Emilia, her trusted confidante, then took it and gave it to her husband. Iago then placed it in Cassioʼs rooms. Where Cassioʼs jealous, extroverted lover Bianca openly accuses him of cavorting with other women, based on this fabricated evidence.
Iago twists the knife by saying to Othello that he has seen Cassio wiping his beard with this handkerchief.
This objet de luxe was associated with Desdemona because she carried it with her everywhere, on her person. For it to be found in Cassioʼs rooms suggests she had visited him there, in secret, and left it there by accident.
Iago tells us his plans in a soliloquy:
The handkerchief was symbolically associated with Desdemona herself, white as snow, adored, adorned, valuable. And of course it symbolized her chastity, not just her bodily chastity but her emotional fidelity. To have another man not only take this valued gift but have it given to him willingly by the lady herself and then treat it with careless contempt is a multi-layered insult to Othello.
So this is an inter-racial love story, in Venetian high society. But itʼs not just based on love. Othello is ambitious. And heʼs good at his job. And heʼs risen high, and fast, in a racist society which is not known as a meritocracy. When he falls in love and hands over luxury objects to the woman of his dreams, she is a Senatorʼs daughter.
After all these years, reading, attending live performances and teaching the play, Iʼve noticed something odd about this handkerchief. Othello tells two versions of the story of its pedigree.
His first version is that his mother is given it by this Egyptian lady. And she gives it to Othello. Act III.
His second version is that his father gave it to his mother. Act V.
What? That makes absolute nonsense of the elaborate ‘official narrativeʼ. The stitching comes undone, under stress. Othello has just killed his wife, and discovered almost immediately afterwards that he had been wrong in his judgment of her, betrayed by his own jealousy and manipulated by a person he thought was his best friend. Heʼs in shock. But facts are facts. If the story he had told us was true, it would be true even at this point.
To understand this strange discrepancy, let us look at the bigger context.
Othelloʼs own ‘unvarnished taleʼ is that he is a man of North African royalty, who ‘draws his line from men of royal siegeʼ. But does he? Did he? How do we know? What legal proof is there of his illustrious lineage? We only have his word for it. His many words.
What if Othello has fabricated his own history? Just as we see and hear him do with the handkerchief? What if he was a very strong, handsome and intelligent man of less than royal birth, whose sheer prowess as a paid soldier enabled him to buy luxury items to impress a woman like Desdemona?
What if he had created a narrative which empowered him, and created an acceptable equivalency between him and the Senatorʼs daughter? It would certainly consolidate his social position in Venice, and make his seat at the Dogeʼs dinner table more secure.
This is an eloquent man, who speaks the ‘Othello musicʼ. He can make us believe whatever he wants us to believe.
And when he says to Iago that his wife ‘had eyes and chose (him)ʼ, he meant it. He was proud of it. She was famous for being ‘opposite to marriageʼ, and rejecting local men: the ‘wealthy curled darlingsʼ of Venice, who aspired to her hand in marriage. She loved Othello because he was different, and exciting, and unknown. She cannot believe he could be jealous, like an ordinary man:
She believes he is exceptional, because she believes she herself is exceptional. But it doesnʼt take long for her to start exercising her race privilege, and telling her husband the General that he had made a mistake in firing Cassio. Why does she feel so entitled so early in their marriage to interfere in his professional life? Most women would not, would they? In the early 16th century?
But here, although Othello as an alpha male in a patriarchal society has gender privilege, she in a racist and colorist Italian society has white female privilege. She says she knows Cassio deserves to be reinstated, and her loyalty and persistent support of her friend is misread by Othello. As Iago knows it will be. She questions Othelloʼs authority and his professional judgment. Thatʼs a risky move, in any marriage.
The handkerchief is a ‘trifle light as airʼ but it outweighs any record she has of devotion to her husband. They simply have not known each other very long, unlike the Los Angeles couple, who together prevail in the late 20thC over their own interfering bete noir.
Which leaves me with one last question: Why would a man who is making a politically ambitious marriage get married in secret? Itʼs a weak move, strategically. Suggesting that this act is done clandestinely and without official sanction. Why would this couple elope? Why not do it in public, with full pomp and circumstance at The Cathedrale di San Marco?
Was it because he knew his father in law would not approve? But Brabantio the respected old Senator ‘lovedʼ him! And ‘oft invitedʼ him to dinner!
Was he afraid of his own father in law? A man like Othello, who is a military hero, decorated by the State of Venice? Afraid of the anger of an old man? A hero and a coward cannot be cut from the same cloth!
But being an honored dinner guest of a Senator and being his son in law and the father of his grandchildren are two different matters, entirely. Othello the General is an entertaining dinner companion. His military prowess entitles him to respect. His words powerfully and poetically paint picturesque scenes. But was he considered qualified to be a worthy partner for a woman of that status in that society, in that era? Thereʼs an age gap, but we can be pretty certain itʼs the race difference that is seen as his only disqualification.
We see that Brabantio is stirred to madness by - Iago. Who stands back in the shadows while Roderigo makes a protracted public scene at the beginning of the play in the street outside Brabantioʼs palazzo, so all the neighbors can hear. How the beautiful ‘white eweʼ, the prized daughter of the Venetian Senator has been stolen from the safety of her home by an ‘old black ramʼ. Scandal!
Who do you think presented the secret marriage to Brabantio in the worst possible light? Who do you think was the only person Othello might have trusted with the secret? And even the necessary arrangements? And who most wanted the marriage to get off to its worst possible and most inopportune start? Was it everyoneʼs best friend, who we later discover had asked his wife to use her position of trust to get her hands on the handkerchief? And bring it to him, saying ‘I have a thing for youʼ? It was a complete stitch up.
Brabantio predictably rushes to the Dogeʼs Palace in the middle of the night and lodges a public complaint against his former dinner guest. His accusations are seen as the ravings of a protective and fond old father. But they include accusations of black magic against Othello. Because only witchcraft (That Old Black Magic!) could have caused his modest and virtuous daughter to leave her home and cast herself on ‘the sooty bosom of such a thing asʼ Othello.
Othello replies that the only witchcraft he has used is the magic of telling the story of his incredible life. Which touched the heart and sparked the imagination of Desdemona. We can well believe that to be the case. She says she ‘saw his visage in his mindʼ.
Crisis unconceals character. And under the pride, the nobility, the resilience and the visible confidence and valor of Othelloʼs persona are unmet needs. Which he is unaware of. And which he, in that toxic masculine culture, cannot admit. For understanding. For respect - not for what service he does for the State, but for himself, as a man. To be loved for himself, not used or disrespected or mocked. Not seen as a stereotype.
They still sell Othello and Desdemona dolls and puppets and costumes at Carnivale. Itʼs a true story, part of Veniceʼs actual colourful history, full of textures and textiles and living myths and tapestries. All with magic woven into them.
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