Shakespeare's Daughters, page 8
Is there evidence in the text for this dark view of Jessica’s marriage? Certainly there are hints that it is not perfect. The “monkey” for which she so willingly trades Leah’s turquoise was for the Elizabethans a symbol of sexual license, and the play is full of references to lust as a threat to fidelity. Gratiano, the “all-licensed” advocate of the appetites, says that anticipation is ultimately more pleasurable than gratification: “All things that are / Are with more spirit chasèd than enjoyed” (II.v.12–13). In the spirit of the locker room bull session in which this remark is uttered, Salerio expresses doubt about Lorenzo’s will to “keep obliged faith unforfeited”—i.e., be true to his marriage vows. “Love’s bonds new-made,” he says, are more appealing. Granted, these two wastrels are hardly the most reliable spokesmen on this subject, and Lorenzo does carry out his promise to marry Jessica. He does not simply seduce and abandon her. He also speaks some lovely poetry in her praise. Still, on their honeymoon at Portia’s borrowed estate, they begin a contest in verse on lovers who also enjoyed such an idyllic night. Lorenzo’s examples, Troilus and Dido, allude to affairs that ended in betrayal; Jessica’s—Thisbe and Medea—to loves destroyed by death. All four of these stories are tragedies. Then Lorenzo shifts rather insensitively to the present, to the night when Jessica “Did steal from the wealthy Jew,” and she counters by accusing him of “stealing her soul with many vows of faith, / And ne’er a true one” (V.i.19–20). Their tone is playful, the duel of wit a typical romantic device, Jessica a willing and equal participant. But the tenor of the allusions is ominous.
When Lorenzo changes the subject to rhapsodizing on “the touches of sweet harmony” in the air, Jessica responds moodily, “I am never merry when I hear sweet music” (V.i.69). He urges her to “mark the music,” and warns against “the man that hath no music in himself” as “fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils,” with “affections dark as Erebus” (ll. 83–85). Shylock, we are reminded, hated the sound of “the wry-necked fife” and warned Jessica against harkening to it. Is her gloominess the mark of a belated—and ineffable—twinge of conscience? Is it a sign, again in the words of the prescient clown Launcelot, that “the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children”? (III.v.1–2). Jessica’s story ends before we see the course of her marriage. The larger play is, after all, a comedy, and it returns at the end to the main love plot between Portia and Bassanio. But Shakespeare implies that the happiness Jessica achieves at the cost of her father’s pain does not go unscathed, that for all her defiance, she remains Shylock’s “flesh and blood.”
Othello
Like Jessica, Desdemona, the rebellious daughter in Othello, marries a man who is anathema to her father. In keeping with the tragic plot, the basis for the father’s opposition to the match is not arbitrary and superficial, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but intrinsic. This time it is not the suitor’s religion that is the issue, as in The Merchant of Venice, but his race: Othello, who has been a welcome guest at Brabantio’s manor house in his capacity as legendary general, becomes a pariah as a husband for Desdemona. The senator, wealthy and privileged, is appalled at the idea of his daughter allying herself with a “stranger of here and everywhere,” and, what is more shocking, “a Moor”—in Elizabethan parlance, a black man. Again, the timing of the marriage suggests the tone of the play: the wedding does not bring the action to a happy close, as in the comic Dream, or occur in mid-play, as in the tragicomic Merchant. Othello and Desdemona elope before the first scene begins; the rest of the play traces the results of that impulsive act. After a brief ascent, events move relentlessly toward their fatal conclusion. Usually, the blame for the love’s failure has been laid on Iago, Othello’s malevolent ensign. Certainly he is the instigator of Othello’s violent jealousy. But it is Brabantio’s jaundiced outlook that informs the play. Bigotry, chauvinism, the inferiority and deviousness of women: these are the values that the magnifico professes. Iago, master artificer that he is, merely spins his web of lies from this insidious matter.
Before Desdemona’s elopement, Brabantio feels secure in his conception of both his rank and his daughter’s nature. He is an established member of the ruling class, accustomed to ease and deference. Desdemona is his only child and heir, a “jewel” (I.iii.195) whose duty is to run his household smoothly until such time as he chooses a husband for her. All these complacent assumptions are apparent in the opening scene. Iago, with his usual eye for human foibles, predicts how the senator will react to the news of Desdemona’s flight. He rouses Brabantio from sleep and “poison[s] his delight” (I.i.68) with a cry against “thieves”: “Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!” (ll. 79–80). The equation of family relationships and material possessions sounds like Shylock. But Iago immediately connects the “robbery” to greater loss: “Your heart is burst; you have lost half your soul.”
As the dazed old man attempts to understand “the reason of this terrible summons,” Iago, under cover of darkness, uses crude barnyard metaphors to describe the new marriage: “an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe” (I.i.88–89). His taunts debase not only the marriage but its progeny: “You’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to you” (ll. 110–12). Lest the father, or the audience, misunderstand, Iago’s feckless sidekick, Roderigo, puts the message in more prosaic terms:
Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
…hath made a gross revolt,
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere [ll. 132–36].
The implication is the familiar one that the daughter is the father’s possession, to be bestowed on a husband he approves of. But Desdemona, Roderigo charges, is even at that moment in “the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor.” The alliterated “s” turns the line into a hiss.
Brabantio condemns her act as “treason of the blood” (I.i.168), a betrayal not only of morality but of family alliance. Like Shylock, he sounds more like a cuckolded husband than a grief-stricken father: “O, she deceives me / Past thought!” he exclaims (ll. 164–65). Several commentators have labeled father-daughter relationships in the plays incestuous. Although such charges, taken literally, seem exaggerated, it is true that Shakespeare’s most damaging fathers are also the most possessive.
Brabantio asserts that his only consolation would have been to act as the arbiter of Desdemona’s choice. In an about-face so sudden that it is comic, he cries to Roderigo, “O, would you had had her!” (I.i.174). This to the drunken fop whom, moments earlier, he was reproaching for “haunt[ing] about [his] doors” after being told outright “My daughter is not for thee” (ll.96–98). Her act makes fatherhood itself seems worthless to him: “Who would be a father?” (l. 163) he demands melodramatically. But Brabantio will not give Desdemona up without a fight. He means to exercise all of his political and social influence to divorce the new couple. Armed and assisted by “special officers of night,” he sets out to “apprehend the Moor” and arraign him before the Duke.
Iago, now playing the role of loyal officer, conveys Brabantio’s invidious purposes to Othello: “He will divorce you,” he warns, or at least use the “law” to exert “restraint and grievance” (I.ii.14–17) on the newlyweds. Under ordinary circumstances, Iago would be right, as we see when Brabantio pleads his case before the Duke and his council. The senator calls this marriage a “wrong” which, he asserts, “any of [his] brethren of the state” must feel “as ’twere their own” (ll. 95–97). Like Hermia’s father, he assumes that only “witchcraft” or “drugs” and “minerals” could cause “nature so preposterously to err” (I.ii.74; I.iii.62–64). By “nature,” he means his conception of Desdemona’s character and predilections: “a maiden never bold; / Of spirit so still and quiet” that she “blush’d” at her own emotions (I.iii.94–96). She seemed entirely opposed to marriage, having “shunned / The wealthy curlèd darlings of [their] nation” (I.ii.67–68). How could such a paragon of modesty and chastity, he flings at Othello, have “run from her guardage to the sooty bosom / Of such a thing as thou—to fear, not to delight” (ll. 70–71). “Sooty” and “thing” reduce the noble commander to a soiled object. Such a choice, he adds cuttingly, could only “incur a general mock.” To him, Othello’s noble lineage means nothing. Although the general descends “from men of royal siege” [rank], and can claim “as proud a fortune” as that of his bride (ll. 21–24), the outraged father sees only his racial heritage and ranks him with “bondslaves and pagans” (l. 99).
This bigotry reflects the typical Venetian attitude, expressed in the slurs of Iago and Roderigo and in the Duke’s initial reaction to Brabantio’s charge. He first grants the magnifico absolute power over the man who has “beguiled” his daughter, promising that the father himself shall read “the bloody book of law” to the malefactor, even should he prove to be the Duke’s “proper [own] son” (I.iii.65–70). But that is before he discovers that the groom is “valiant Othello,” whom he has just summoned to lead the Venetian fleet “against the general enemy Ottoman” (l. 49). Two sources of power are in conflict here: social status and political expediency. In this instance, the general is a much more valuable ally to the Duke than the senator. Still, not wishing to affront Brabantio, he politically takes the middle course and grants the accused a hearing.
Othello calmly admits the factual charge: “That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter, / It is most true; true I have married her” (I.iii.78–79). But, he adds wryly, it was not a seduction brought about by “drugs” and “conjuration” but a mutual accord. He bids them “send for the lady,” staking not only his “office” but his “life” on her confirmation (ll. 115–20). Meanwhile, he recounts the actual “process” of courting Desdemona, which consisted of telling her “the story of [his] life,” with its “disastrous chances,” “moving accidents,” and “hairbreadth scapes” (ll. 129–36). The setting for this account was her own home, where, Othello recalls, Brabantio himself “oft invited me”; in this capacity as heroic adventurer, he recalls, “her father loved me.” Desdemona listened to the tale with “a greedy ear” (l. 149) and reacted with tears, “a world of sighs,” and exclamations of awe: “She swore, i’ faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange; / ’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful” (ll. 159–61). Othello’s echo of his beloved’s diction shows affection and pride. He recalls fondly her remark that if he could teach this story to “a friend,” it alone “would woo her.” Othello heard this as the indirect proposal that it was, and declares, “Upon this hint I spake” (l. 166). The impetus for the love, then, is the sheltered woman’s admiration for the man’s prowess and stoic suffering, her “pity” for “the dangers [he] had passed,” and his gratification at her sympathy: the classic warrior/maiden bond.
The Duke is charmed: “I think this tale would win my daughter, too,” he murmurs indulgently. But Brabantio is counting on a last chance to prove his fixed conception of his daughter. When Desdemona enters, he leads with what he thinks is his strongest card: he asks the young woman who has hitherto been all compliance to state “Where most you owe obedience” (I.iii.181). She responds with an eloquent statement on the “divided duty” she perceives: “respect” for the father who has given her “life and education,” but a more compelling devotion to her new husband. She cites as precedent her own mother’s “duty” to Brabantio, “preferring you before her father” (ll. 186–89).
Brabantio had chosen this public forum as a means of pressuring Desdemona to resume her former role. But with great poise and dignity she has stood her ground, and his ploy backfires: not only his political allies but the child of his loins have denied him, and the hearing becomes the scene not of her but of his humiliation. Brabantio is stung into vindictiveness. First, he denigrates the family bond: “I had rather to adopt a child than get it.” Then he imagines vicarious vengeance on other daughters if he had them, for Desdemona’s “escape” would “teach [him] tyranny”—to keep them in manacles (ll. 191–98). He again insults his new son-in-law, addressing Othello by his racial designation, “Moor,” and telling him that, had he not won Desdemona already, Brabantio would “with all [his] heart … keep [her] from thee” (ll. 192–95). The intimate pronoun signals not affection but contempt.
The Duke tries to intervene in this painful public quarrel and “help” the lovers back into the father’s graces. But Brabantio turns aside his consoling aphorisms with cutting sarcasm and shifts the focus to the military crisis. Othello agrees to lead the campaign against the Turks, asking only “fit” accommodation for his bride while he is away. The Duke responds, “If you please, be’t at her father’s” (ll. 239–40), the usual abode for a wife whose husband was absent. But Brabantio cuts him off, completing his blank verse line with the curt “I will not have it so.” The negation is immediately echoed by both Othello and Desdemona. She elaborates: “I would not there reside / To put my father in impatient thoughts” (ll. 241–42)—tactfully avoiding accusation and focusing instead on the issue of his undisturbed tranquility.
Out of this stalemate arises Desdemona’s impulsive request to accompany her husband to the scene of battle. She couches her plea in the most idealistic terms: She has “consecrate[d]” not only her “fortunes” but her “soul” to Othello’s “honors and his valiant parts” (ll. 253–54). The religious allusions suggest the fervor of the young bride’s commitment. She professes to the assembled company her devotion to “the very quality of [her] lord,” and adds, “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind” (ll. 251–52). This platonic conception of the essential Othello directly counters her father’s disparaging view of his mere outside. It is an ideal that Desdemona will persist in maintaining against all evidence of the actual man’s fearful decline.
For the moment, however, Othello’s idealism equals his bride’s. He asserts that he wants her to accompany him not to “please the palate of [his] appetite”—for physical gratification—“but to be free and bounteous to her mind” (I.iii.262–65). The Duke, pragmatist that he is, leaves the decision to the newlyweds, “either for her stay or going,” demanding only “haste in the preparations.” He makes one last attempt to ingratiate Othello with Brabantio: “noble signior / If virtue no delighted beauty lack, / Your son-in-law is far more fair than black” (ll. 288–90). The light rhyme suggests his own ingrained bigotry. Brabantio’s response is to bestow not a parting blessing but a curse:
Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
She has deceived her father, and may thee [ll. 292–93].
His words reflect his adamant belief in male authority. For the moment, Othello seems above such bias. He defends Desdemona nobly: “My life upon her faith.” But his father-in-law’s warning will return to haunt him when he has lost faith in himself. The agent of that loss is at hand: Othello sends Desdemona off in the care of “honest Iago,” the very man bent on destroying the new marriage.
But Iago alone could not undermine so seemingly perfect a union. What causes the love to deteriorate horrifically into murder and suicide? For one thing, the lovers do not know each other very well: the courtship has been brief and superficial. Also, the couple relocates to an unfamiliar place that is hostile to romance and to women. But the most important factor is Brabantio’s unyielding rejection. When Brabantio first lodged his complaint, the Duke questioned him about the cause of his laments for his daughter: “Dead?” The father responded, “Ay, to me” (I.iii.59). The rest of the play shows the effect of that cruel decree.
Desdemona has been charged with weakness and gullibility in the face of Othello’s increasing rage. But if she is merely a fool and Othello a brute, the play is reduced to a farce in which we lose sympathy for the lovers and simply relish Iago’s machinations. In fact, Desdemona does not lack courage or wit: She has been bold and eloquent in defense of her love, even before an assembly of the most powerful men in the state. But because her devotion to Othello has cost her so much—father, society, home—she clings to her absolute concept of his worth. Without Brabantio’s paternal protection and advice, Desdemona has no one to shield her from Iago’s schemes. Brabantio has provided his daughter neither the emotional means to independence nor the continued shelter that her naiveté requires. She has dared to defy his will, and, feeling abandoned, he abandons her, concealing his hurt with anger. Brabantio does not witness the dire results of his rejection: he makes no further appearances in the play. But, as we discover in the end, the sentence that he passes on her—isolation and death—will fall on him as well.
Desdemona suffers this fate partly because she is what she seems, the “jewel” of “perfection” that both her father and her husband conceive her to be: in Othello’s words, an “entire and perfect chrysolite” (V.ii.146). But the metaphor has an ominous ring: a woman should not be seen as a possession, whose beauty and purity reflect well on its owner. The concept of ideal femininity that the play presents literally, rather than metaphorically, is equally troubling. Fittingly, it is offered by the villain.
