Othellos Jealousy
Othello’s JealousyShakespeare’s Othello is a good transition from comedy to tragedy for it picks up the story where the comedies left off. Whereas the comedies invariably end with marriage, Othello begins with one. However, the same problem persists. Female sexuality is a threat to the patriarchal society, and must he safely contained. The comedies suggested that heterosexual marriage was the means to control female sexuality. Nonetheless, Desdemona’s sexuality greatly threatens her husband, Othello. To eliminate Desdemona’s sexuality and restore her purity (read virginity), Othello must kill his wife. Only then is he safe from her sexual influence.
Othello intimates that female sexuality is a threat to him early in the play. He tells the senate, “For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,/Till now some nine moons wasted…” (I. iii. 83-84). The idea that moons could waste Othello’s arms suggests that female sexuality (represented by the lunar menstrual cycle) can undermine Othello’s masculinity (represented by his arms that wield his weapons). Othello pinpoints the source of this degradation when he describes his relationship with Desdemona: “She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,/ And I loved her that she did pity them” (I. iii. 167-168). Othello moves from a martial world to one governed by maternal pity. This movement robs Othello of his manhood, returning him to a child-like state of dependence.
In addition to his fear of domination by a woman, Othello fears domination by his own feelings toward her. His assurances to the senate that this will not happen “the young affects/In me defunct” (I. iii. 264-265) sounds as if he is trying to convince himself more than the lords. Othello fears that the awakening of his sexual desire for Desdemona may draw potency from his martial prowess. This translates into a dread of the consummation of his marriage to Desdemona. When the battle with the Turks is done, Othello can no longer delay the consummation. Before he takes this irreversible step, he says: “If it were now to die,/’Twere now to be most happy” (II. i. 191-192). Othello acknowledges that the contamination of his masculine power by female sexuality is preventative to his happiness.
Othello gets a vicious double blow in his confrontation with female sexuality. Not only must he confront Desdemona’s sexuality through the consummation of their marriage, he must deal with the possibility that his wife is having an affair. Upon this realization, Othello cries:
what sense had I of her stol’n hours of lust?
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! 0, farewell
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war! …
Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!
(Ill. iii. 33&357)
Female sexuality destroys Othello’s masculinity-his ability for violent combat when he comes face to face with Desdemona’s sexuality.
Othello expresses his fear of female sexuality through the image of the handkerchief, given to Desdemona by Othello. The handkerchief, white and “spotted with strawberries” (III. iii. 435), is a miniaturization of the couple’s wedding sheets, which “with lust’s blood…be spotted” (V. i. 36). The handkerchief serves as a reminder that Desdemona is no longer a virgin. Even the mystical creation of the handkerchief is steeped with sexuality:
A sibyl… In her prophetic fury sew’d the work;
The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts.
(III. iv. 70-75)
Shakespeare’s image of the worms “breed[ing]” the silk offers a grotesque view of sexuality. The maidens’ hearts again allude to the virgin’s blood spotting the white sheets.
The history of the handkerchief also suggests the power of female sexuality over men:
That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it,
‘Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love….
(III. iv. 55-60)
The image of the North African witch often symbolizes the evil of female sexuality for Shakespeare. Sycorax of The Tempest spawned an evil son; Othello’s Egyptian gives the women in Othello’s life power over their men. Othello fears that Desdemona will not equate her desires to his own. The possibility that she could give away the handkerchief, and thus control her own desires, causes Othello great distress.
In order to regain his masculinity, Othello must control Desdemona’s sexuality. Othello’s first instinct is to symbolically, and violently, recreate the consummation of their marriage. He wants to “chop her into messes” (IV. i. 211), spilling her blood a second time. His second suggestion of poisoning her reminds us that Othello is truly the one responsible for Desdemona’s “impurity.” The image of his giving his wife a poison is a distorted image of his sexually contaminating her through intercourse. At Iago’s suggestion, Othello decides to strangle her in “the bed she hath contaminated” (IV. i. 221). Shakespeare makes it ambiguous with whom Desdemona has contaminated the bed. At first glance, Iago seems to be referring to Desdemona’s supposed affair with Cassio. However, Shakespeare never suggests that they used Desdemona and Othello’s bed. The only person we know for sure that had intercourse with Desdemona in that bed, thereby contaminating it, is Othello.
Othello’s decision to strangle his wife is an attempt to purify Desdemona and the bed: “Yet I’ll not shed her blood” (V. ii. 3). Neither his wife nor his bed will be stained with “lust’s blood.” Emilia foreshadows Othello’s attempt to undo the consummation when she says, “I might do’t as well i’ the dark…and undo’t when I had done” (IV. iii.66-72). As if in response to her words, Othello says that he will “Put out the light [the candle], and then put out the light [Desdemona]” (V. ii. 7). Othello then explicitly explains his need to kill Desdemona:
When I have pluck’d the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It must needs wither: I’ll smell it on the tree.
(V. ii. 13-15)
Once Othello has “deflowered” Desdemona, she must die. In death, Desdemona loses her sexuality, thus regaining her purity and virginity. Othello can now absolve himself for making her impure, and once again admit his love for his wife: “I will kill thee,/And love thee after” (V. ii. 18-19).
Desdemona’s death also frees Othello of his sexual anxiety. Desdemona’s desire, on rather, Othello’s desire for Desdemona, no longer affects his manhood. Othello becomes the warrior he was before he met Desdemona. Attacking Iago reinstates this masculinity. Even through his own death, Othello manages to remove the need for a woman for intercourse. He plunges his sword, his symbol of masculinity(both metaphorically and as a phallic symbol), into his own body spilling his blood, just as he did Desdemona’s. His suicide is not only retribution for killing his wife, but also an acknowledgment that he is responsible for her impurity. It is poetically just that he should die through an act of metaphoric intercourse.
While we may grieve for Othello at the end of the play, Shakespeare makes Othello’s tragedy of his own devising. Iago may have aggravated the situation, but Othello’s own anxiety toward Desdemona’s sexuality would have forced her death regardless. The patriarchal society demands that a woman must not have desires of her own. Female sexuality is a double threat to this status quo. Not only may a woman sexually desire any man she chooses, but a man’s desire for a woman emasculates him by making him subservient to her desires. Therefore, female sexuality must be safely removed from the realm of the patriarchy. Othello reinforces Shakespeare’s old adage that the only good woman is a dead woman.