Demand Me Nothing What You Know You Know
By Rod Beecham
From the production of Othello, at Pop-up World, Melbourne, October 2017. Photograph by Jennifer Mitchell
[The secondary literature on Shakespeare is unmanageably vast, and what follows does not pretend to be informed by it. I am simply recording some thoughts I've had from teaching Othello in 2017.]
Othello, unlike Shakespeare'due south other major tragedies, is a play in which the title character does not have the most lines. That distinction belongs to the villain, Iago. As those familiar with the play know, speech is the medium of Iago's villainy: he furthers his designs through dialogue rather than activity. I have always been struck, therefore, past his last voice communication: 'Need me nil; what you know, you know. / From this time forth I never volition speak word.' (V.i.300-01).
What is the significance of Iago's silence? He tells his outraged listeners: 'what you know, y'all know.' What do they know? I take Iago to mean that what he has done has been discovered and, that being the case, at that place is zippo more than to be said. Gratiano responds that, 'Torments will ope your lips' (V.i.303), suggesting that Iago will reveal the reasons for his behaviour under torture, but nosotros in the audience who have followed the action cannot believe that, for what more is there for Iago to reveal? He fabricated 'the net / That shall enmesh them all' (Two.iii.339-40) out of his ain envy and spite, and these are non feelings that tin be assigned to specific causes: they are the essence of his nature. Iago did what he did because he was Iago.
His silence, therefore, points to something profound and unsettling: that we cannot aspect explicable motivations to human behaviour, that destructive, anti-social behaviour just is and cannot be traced to identifiable causes which, if discovered, would allow the possibility of remedy. Is this what Shakespeare meant?
Ane might argue that Iago provides the audition with reasons for his behaviour. He resents Cassio'south promotion and he thinks that Othello may have slept with his wife. But his references to these motives are brief and sporadic, and they practise not explain the misery his schemes inflict on Desdemona, towards whom he does not brandish any personal animosity at all. Iago's lack of passion has often been remarked upon, and it is a significant signal to bear in mind when we start looking for explanations of his behaviour. A character driven by resentment or by sexual jealousy would exist consumed with passion, but the impression Iago leaves on the audience is one of calculating manipulation. If he exhibits whatever genuine emotion at all, it is enjoyment of his own cunning. Torments, nosotros feel, will not open his lips because he has nil further to reveal.
Which brings us to the significance of voice communication. Iago's final lines imply that speech, in his view, has become futile. Everything that happened was driven past speech, so he appears to feel that, at present he has been unmasked, there is zilch more worth maxim.
The significance of speech is introduced at the very kickoff of Othello. The play opens in the heart of an argument betwixt Roderigo and Iago, in which Iago exclaims, 'you lot will non hear me' (I.i.4), while Roderigo complains, 'Thou told'st me' (I.i.7). Equally the audition apace learns, 'I said-y'all said' is the central dynamic of the action. Iago expresses contempt for Cassio, newly appointed as Othello's lieutenant (a position Iago feels should have been his), labelling Cassio'south soldiership, 'Mere prattle without practice' (I.i.26). We acquire that Iago regards his own experience on active service as far more than valuable than Cassio's theoretical study of war, and that he attributes Cassio's elevation to the power of 'letter and affection' (I.i.36); that is, personal recommendation and influence. Iago, thereby, is established as a character who considers deeds to count for much less than words.
The consequences of this belief for Iago's behaviour, and signs that his conventionalities is not unreasonable, become speedily apparent. The side by side scene presents Iago giving his ain version of his chat with Roderigo to Othello: 'he prated / And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms / Confronting your honour' (I.two.half dozen-8). Ironically, Othello considers that his services to the state – his deeds, in other words – will protect him from ill-fortune (I.ii.18-24, 31-2), but, every bit the action proceeds, we realize that non deeds but words are Othello's all-time protection. It is his speech to the Senate that saves him from Brabantio's wrath, not the memory of his prior service, and, as Othello himself explains, it was oral communication that drew Desdemona to him, the dilation of his pilgrimage, his 'story' (I.iii.153, 157).
Iago's awareness of the effectiveness of speech as an instrument is evident in his second conversation with Roderigo towards the end of Act I. 'I accept professed me thy friend', he says (I.iii.332), and, 'I have told thee / frequently, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor.' (I.iii.357-58). Embedded in his voice communication, nosotros see, are references to the human activity of speech. He does not say, 'I am your friend': he says, 'I have alleged myself your friend.' He does not say, 'I hate Othello': he says, 'I take told you that I hate Othello.' In the soliloquy that concludes the offset Act, Iago says that he will 'abuse Othello's ear' (I.iii.386); that is, he will exploit the power of speech to influence Othello's perception. In Iago'southward view, speech does not mediate the truth, it constructs the truth.
There is an obvious connection with this view and the notion of personal reputation, a theme with which all readers of the play volition exist familiar. When Cassio is cashiered in Human activity Two he is distraught over his loss of reputation, 'the immortal part' of himself (Ii.iii.246). Iago himself tells Othello that, 'Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, / Is the immediate jewel of their souls.' (III.3.156-57). Iago, of course, does not really believe this – he expressed a cynical view of reputation to Cassio in Human action II (Two.ii.251-54) – but he knows that information technology is a valuable commodity in the globe and tin to a big extent be created or destroyed by speech (we recall that he attributed Cassio's original promotion to reputation rather than to inherent ability). He therefore deploys speech to destroy the reputations of Cassio, Othello and Desdemona, trading cynically on his own reputation for honesty, which he knows is undeserved—a knowledge that adds to his contempt for his victims.
Lest this appear speculative, consider Iago'south brief soliloquy in the middle of the temptation scene, immediately prior to the reappearance of Othello.
The Moor already changes with my poison:
Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
Which at the first are scarce institute to distaste
But, with a little act upon the blood,
Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so.
(III.iii.326-xxx)
Iago conceives, not just hither simply elsewhere in the play, of his words as 'poison', capable of distorting perception, generating thoughts that grow over fourth dimension until they have taken complete possession of a person. 'I did say so', he concludes, a remark capable of several interpretations but which, in all, reduces to the essential point that speech of and in itself is capable of constructing a person's sense of reality.
Iago'south ultimate silence represents the defeat of this view, but the incomprehension of his accusers – 'Torments will ope your lips' – suggests that they have completely missed the significance of that silence, and that by looking for motives for Iago's behaviour they are unwittingly allowing scope for hereafter Iagos to replicate the successes of the master. The world of the play is one in which, on the basis of speech lone, a character can say, 'Now exercise I see 'tis true.' (III.iii.445). In this sense, Othello may exist regarded as the bleakest of all Shakespeare's tragedies—and, in our current age of spin, the most prophetic.
Rod Beecham was educated at Monash and Oxford and took his doctorate from the Academy of Melbourne. He is currently preparing a biography of the poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe. Rod is a Literature Lecturer in the Trinity Higher Foundation Studies Programme.
Source: https://steepstairs.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/iagos-silence/
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