Otherness and the Nature of Jealousy in Othello - Research Paper Example

Otherness’ and the Nature of Jealousy in Othello Jealousy is an emotion that consumes. Jealousy changes the nature of a relationship. It attacks trust. It destroys intimacy. Jealousy is an experience that has no sense of reason, no sense of rationality, and often climaxes in a traumatic event that is life altering. Arguments, violence, anguish, and destruction can all come from the rise of jealousy in between two people. In the story of Othello, Shakespeare explores the theme of jealousy for all of its most destructive powers. When Othello kills Desdemona in a fit of rage, he has been shadowed in the worst of the powers of jealousy. There is a reason it is called a monster. Jealousy transforms love into a rage that can have deadly consequences. The monster that Othello becomes destroys the love that he held for Desdemona and eventually destroyed the vessel of that love, Desdemona herself. From the perspective of a clinical discussion of the emotion of jealousy, the nature of jealousy is a complex system of emotional programs that have evolved as responses in reference to threats to procreative responsibilities (Lewis 122). This response is intended to protect the line of male succession, thus it is seen more often and more dangerously in men. In addition, it has only been in recent history that women have had a right to demand fidelity in their mates. While men have guarded fidelity in women with lethal prejudice, women have only been allowed to express jealousy in regard to their mates through cultural norms in the last few centuries of human history. In discussing the nature of the jealousy expressed by Othello, it is necessary to understand the cultural position on the relationships between men and women during the period of the play and the period in which it was written. According to Lewis, “cues of a situation trigger an emotion mode, but embedded in that emotion mode is a way of seeing the world and feeling about the world related to the ancestral cluster of associated elements (122). The way in which an emotion is perceived and is reacted to is dependent upon both the visual cues that suggest the appropriateness of that emotion and the historical cultural values that define that emotion. One might believe that an emotion is experienced in the same way no matter the cultural location, but this is not true. The emotion develops upon the beliefs on how a culture has framed its expression and appropriateness. As an example, love is an emotion that seems relatively similar in all cultures. However, that can be argued. Love is a feeling that can be tied to desire, that can be tied to mutual experiences, or that can be tied to dependency. In cultures where people marry through arrangement, love can develop between two people who are put together and learn to feel for one another. In other cultures, love is something that develops once the physical attraction has been established. Therefore, it must be understood that an emotional exploration is going to be relevant to the culture through which the emotion is expressed. Jealousy, in Othello, is defined by two cultures, the culture that Shakespeare writes about and his own culture. The gender relations during the time of Shakespeare were defined by a wide variety of dynamics. In literature, the idea of romantic love was highly visible, but literary love is influenced by the realities of the dynamics of the time period. The possession of the female gender was also highly important in calculating the reaction of jealousy. The patriarchal society designates the female as an object, rather than the subject of her life. While it is true that the realities of the gender relationships were more complicated than the patriarchal ideals defined, it is the ideology of the patriarchal society that allows for the extremes in jealousy that can be defined when a woman is a possession rather than an individual. The 17th century philosopher John Locke stated that men had no more control over the lives of women than they did over men. However, he also later referred to paternal power, and is quoted for saying “the Rule should be placed somewhere (when there are differences between husband and wife), it naturally falls to the Man’s share, as the abler and stronger” (Dutton 249). First, it must be noted that according to Dutton, the patriarchal society is, to an extent, a myth. While the laws prescribed the a power relationship that placed the male gender over the female gender, and while the prescribed behaviors of a ‘good wife’ placed her in an oppressed state, these ‘ideals’ were not necessarily the nature of the relationship between men and women (176). The nature of the female position was not in lacking power, but in lacking authority. Therefore, according to Bartels, the female of pre 19th and 20th century reforms would have two choices. She could either live the dutiful life of the wife, sacrificing herself to the submissive structure of the male to female dynamic in marriage, or fly in defiance of those roles, thus sacrificing the support of the law and of authority, leaving herself open to the consequences that were outside of her control. Either way, a woman was in a position of vulnerability (419). The dynamic that existed within relationships allows one to understand how Shakespeare could write about strong, imposing women who often allow the discussion of the women in Shakespeare to be used to name the bard an early feminist. At the same time, however, he created female characters who were without their own sustaining nature, their life clinging to the actions of the males around them. An example of this is Ophelia as she takes her own life when Hamlet behaves towards her in a cruel manner. Ophelia falls into madness as she cannot stand strong against the turmoil that is imposed on her by Hamlet. Another example of this, of course, is Desdemona. There are many aspects of Desdemona which do not play as weak, but in the end the word victim is aptly applied. She is characterized by her rebellion that led her to marry Othello, but this does not fully describe her character. She has boldness, but is also submissive. The way that she is framed creates her submission, her life as a wife to Othello becoming that of the submitted woman, her early rebellion replaced with her knowledge of ‘her place’. Bartels states that “She becomes the ‘perfect wife’ who ‘remains perfectly submissive to the end’ and whose ‘very self consists in not being a self, not being even a body, but a bodiless, obedient silence” (419, referenced from Briston). She begins her life as a woman in a bold and brash defiance of her father, but in penance for her rebellion, she assumes the role of a wife who submits to the volatilities of her husband. Therefore, the way in which the relationship between Desdemona and Othello has been framed is based upon the nature of the patriarchal dynamic, Othello the older, controlling husband with Desdemona younger and in the less assertive role. She bows to the ‘wisdoms’ of her husband and innocently looks to her life without seeing the treacheries that are being performed around her. She is a victim waiting to happen in the tragedy, her choices providing foreshadows of how her life will come to its end. In choosing the nature of Othello, the characteristics that ascribe to him an ‘otherness’ provides context for understanding how in choosing ‘otherness’ Desdemona is fated to fall to the folly of her choice. To frame her position more specifically, in defying her father, Desdemona has set herself as a woman who does not behave in an honorable fashion, the betrayal of her father foreshadowing her ultimate doom through the choice she made in that betrayal. The choices of the nature of Othello, the details of his character and his ancestry creates an ’otherness’ that acts as an explanation for some of his behaviors. Betteridge states that “Othello’s identity depends upon a constant performance of his ’story’, a loss of his own origins, and an embrace and perpetual reiteration of the norms of another culture” (146). Othello’s nature is one of duality in trying to shed the nature of his own history. This also provides the framework in which his emotional reactions can be separated from the audience, his ’otherness’ an excuse for his violence and his paranoid delusions. In reflecting how a man might react to the apparent infidelity of his wife, the text separates the audience member from the direct contact of the action. The play is considered one of the most complex sexual plays written by Shakespeare, the plot In an interview with writer Andrew Davies who wrote a version of the play for a modernized production set in Scotland yard for the BBC, he states that “Othello is the most domestic of Shakespeare’s tragedies and the one that’s likely to strike a personal note with a lot of people watching it…This one is about jealousy and I would guess that most people have experienced really powerful sexual jealousy sometime in their lives” (Masterpiece Theater). While the emotions are familiar to all in the audience, the release from convention is provided by the sense of ’otherness’ that is the exotic nature of the Moor. In defining him as a Moor, and referring to his barbarism and through the initial accusation of witchcraft, the ’otherness’ allows for the tragedy to have a horror element, both separating the audience from the action and engaging them in the familiarity of the feelings associated with it. This ’otherness’ also allows for the nature of jealousy to be explored for the way in which it changes and recreates the individual who is displaying the emotion. When Desdemona asks Emilia about jealousy, her mysterious response is to say “But jealous souls will not be answered so:/They are not ever jealous for the cause,/ But jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster,/Begot upon itself, born on itself” (Nordlund 163). This description of jealousy is the main core of the nature of the ’otherness’ that is defined by the foreign nature of Othello. He is a part of the culture, and yet set aside, the emotion of jealousy having this same nature. It is a part of the normal repertoire of the human emotional scale, but it manifests in such a way as the one feeling it has no recognition of the feeling, something that takes over and changes behavior and effects outcomes. Betteridge states that “The fact that Othello’s sense of self is based on a narrated journey that circles around a core of ‘otherness’ is a reflection of its normalty” (146). In his foreign nature, Othello reflects the foreign and disconnected nature of the emotion of jealousy, thus creating a discourse on the nature of duality within the context of what is believed and how one behaves. What a person does is not always reflective of how they would choose to behave. The ‘otherness’, this control asserted by emotions that changes reactions is the discussion that the nature of Othello provides. Therefore, the ’otherness’ of Othello is reflective of the foreign feeling that can be experienced through jealousy. As the figure through whom jealousy manifests, his own ’otherness’ reinforces the strange effects of the emotion of jealousy. Nordlund, in describing the nature of understanding of jealousy in the time of Shakespeare, states that “Although there was no consensus about the exact causes of jealousy in Shakespeare’s time, most writers on the subject seem to have agreed that it was a very strange and inordinate passion” (163). Nordlund goes on to quote the beliefs of several writers from that time where Robert Burton called jealousy a ’species apart’, Edmund Tilney said there was “no greater torment than the vexation of the jealous mind”, and Montaigne said that jealousy was “the most vaine and turbulent infirmitie that may afflict man’s minde” (163). In characterizing the nature of jealousy as a separate entity, a foreign implantation that could be considered an illness, a species, or a vexation, the responsibility for the emotion is no longer residing in the human mind, but in an ’other’ that cannot be adequately described. Thus, the otherness of Othello becomes symbolic for the nature of jealousy. In exploring the influences that Shakespeare would have had in regard to jealousy, one can look at Ovid’s The Art of Love, in which the concept of jealousy is discussed as an uncontrollable entity. The Roman poet treated the subject of love with humor and lightness, until he came to his discussion of jealousy. Jealousy was discussed through an admission that he did not understand how he could feel those pangs that would torment him into behaving differently than was normal. It is the plague of the human experience of love that once it is attained, there is always the fear of losing it. In taking the experience and opening up to its vulnerability, the fear of then losing that experience will often be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Tolstoy, in discussing Othello, brings forward the ways in which the events of the play do not reflect the true nature of a man going through the experience of jealousy. Tolstoy writes “Shakespeare, while profiting by characters already given in preceding dramas, or romances, chronicles, or Plutarch’s ’Lives’, not only fails to render them more truthful and vivid, as eulogists affirm, but on the contrary, always weakens them and often completely destroys them” (Tolstoy, Crosby and Shaw 64). In comparing the play of Othello to the Italian romance that it plagiarizes for the plot and the story, fails to add, what Tolstoy believes, is a core element to the belief that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio is that Cassio appears at the back door and then, seeing Othello runs away, not out of guilt for an affair, but this is how it appears to Othello. In deleting this detail, Tolstoy believes that the literary cause is to focus on the manipulation of Iago, but in so doing, makes the idea that Othello believes in Desdemona’s unfaithfulness implausible (Tolstoy, Crosby and Shaw 65). Tolstoy also discusses the way in which Othello stands over his wife, lamenting that she will be dead and hoping that she will only look as if she is sleeping once he has killed her. Tolstoy brings forward the lack of immediacy and passion with which a man would take the life of his wife. The monologue creates a split with truth and reality, changing the nature of the act from one of passion to one of premeditation that would not have the stillness that Tolstoy observes. Not that it is still, but it is also not filled with an abandonment of reason. Therefore, the moment loses some of its credibility (Tolstoy, Crosby and Shaw 65). However, there is some argument that Othello does not kill Desdemona from a rage of jealousy, but in order to save his honor. In this case, it is possible that the criticism of Tolstoy is based upon the wrong point of view on the motivations that drive Othello. Regardless of the nature of the motivation and despite the criticism of Tolstoy, the issue of jealousy is explored through its personification through Othello. The nature of the way in which the emotion creates its own path, immaterial to the reason and rationality of the person who experiences the feeling, is explored through the shifted cultural position of the character Othello. He is in his setting, but his cultural history has his ideologies out of sync with the culture in which he has created a life. He is not a stranger to his location, but neither is he fully a part of it. It is the same with the emotion of jealousy, both a part of the emotional content of a person’s life and separate from the desired nature of expressing feelings that are associated with it. Love and sexual desire are feelings that are wanted by humans as they go through the course of life, but the negative side of those feelings, that desperation and sense of loss that can come when fear overrides belief in that love. Othello is a story that delves into the horrors of jealousy. The nature of the main character is the manifestation of the way in which jealousy is experienced. The ‘otherness’ is a metaphor for the experience of the feeling. In addition, the culture of patriarchal subjugation is explored through the nature of the relationship between Othello and Desdemona. As Desdemona sacrifices her rebellious spirit to be a good and submissive wife, she becomes the subject of vulnerability and is eventually the victim of her choices. Although some of the action, as explored by Tolstoy, does not relate to the ways in which the events might actually happen, Othello is an exploration of the strangeness of jealousy. Works Cited Bartels, Emily C. “Strategies of Submission: Desdemona, the Duchess, and the Assertion of Desire. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 36.2 (Spring 1996), 417-433. Betteridge, Thomas. Shakespearean Fantasy and Politics. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2005. Print. Briston, Michael D. “Charivari and the Comedy of Abjection in Othello”. in True Rites and Maimed Rites: Ritual and Anti-Ritual in Shakespeare and His Age, ed Linda Woodbridge and Edward Berry. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press (1992): 75-97. Dutton, Richard, and Jean E. Howard. A Companion to Shakespeares Works. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2003. Print. Lewis, Michael, Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, and Lisa F. Barrett. Handbook of Emotions. New York: Guilford Press, 2010. Print. Masterpiece Theater “An Interview with Andrew Davies”. PBS. n.d. Web. 2 May 2011. Nordlund, Marcus. Shakespeare and the Nature of Love: Literature, Culture, Evolution. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 2007. Print. Schochet, Gordon J. The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England: Patriarchalism in Political Thought. New Brunswich U.S.A: Transaction Books, 1988. Print. Tolstoy, Leo, Ernest H. Crosby, and Bernard Shaw. Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1907. Print. Read More