Just so you can follow the train of thought that I had while making this, I was working under the theory that one’s reputation is their soul (it’s what lives on after you and Cassio in particular, after he’s disgraced, has a line about how he’s lost the better part of himself and “what remains is beastly”) and through that Shakespeare was hinting that Iago wasn’t entirely human since his reputation has been entirely false, but I didn’t fully work out the theory and if I want to include the part in act V (spoilers) where Othello is looking down at Iago’s feet expecting them to be cloven and thus a sign that he is the devil and then realizes “that’s a fable”, then I’d have to say that either Shakespeare is saying that humans can do inhuman things to each other for no real reason or purpose other than hate/jealousy/what-have-you or evil is never going to be quite so obvious as to be marked by one’s physical appearance. Or, you know, both.
But that’s why there’s all the animal and soul references in the following songs:
Othello
- Swallow People Whole - The Receiving End Of Sirens
- Animal - Miike Snow
- She Loves Me So - Anthony Green
- What Your Baby’s Been Doing - Small Sins
- Are You Alone? - The Starting Line
- Knees Deep At ATP - Los Campesinos!
- I Heard It Through The Grape Vine - Marvin Gaye
- She Loves You - The Beatles
- Letter Read - Rachael Yamagata
- You Don’t Feel Like Home To Me - The Good Life
- Lose Your Soul - Dead Man’s Bones
- Everything I Once Had - The Honorary Title
- Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford & Sons
- Look What You’ve Done - Jet
Just to wander into “thrilling tale, chap” territory, someone in one of my discussion classes mentioned that they really disliked Desdemona in this because they thought she was very weak and, since we had just read The Merchant of Venice, couldn’t understand why if Shakespeare could write strong female characters, he wouldn’t include them in all of his plays. It made me realize that dating back to antiquity the common belief was that a woman’s greatest strength is her ability to communicate (there’s legit reasons behind this and an interesting article (which I can’t find right now, but there is one called The Male Actor of Greek Tragedy: Evidence of Misogyny or Gender-Bending? by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, which mentions a similar theory) on why there’s so much cross-dressing in Greek tragedy, the gist of which is that women are better at manipulating through words because, unlike men, they cannot just state what they want and get it, they need more subtle methods. The cross-dressing comes in because, if done successfully (ex. not be killed by their crazed mother) that was how the men in the play symbolically “conquer” women and gain their power as well as immunity for themselves) and tragedy hinges on a lack of communication. At the end of Act IV, Emilia and Desdemona only approach the subject of infidelity and had they explored it further (i.e. communicated better or, to put it back into terms of my classmate’s complaint, been stronger women), Iago’s plan would have unraveled right then and there, Desdemona could have spoken plainly to Othello, and everyone would have lived. Tragedy (insofar as how it was written) came to depend on “weak” women.
Just thought I’d share. Thank you for your time.
