According to A. L. Rowse, William Shakespeare's Othello is one of the most perfect plays ever written (13). There is practically nothing in it that does not contribute to plot or character development (unlike Hamlet, which is filled with a large cast, complexities, and sub-plots). G. B. Harrison agrees that the construction is perfect (1058). Only two brief scenes with a clown in Act III don't seem to advance the play any. That, and one strange plot element: the Turkish war and change of locale from Venice to Cyprus. If the play be merely about Iago convincing a jealous Othello that his wife is sleeping with Cassio, why bother having a war between Acts I and II? None of the characters are killed or wounded in the war, nor does the politics of the Venetian acquisitions affect the plot (in Act IV, scene 1, Lodovico speculates that Othello is angry because he's called home, but we know he's really angry because he thinks his wife is cheating on him), nor are there any speeches expounding on either the glories or horrors of war, such as there are in Henry V and Julius Caesar. Why then, in this most perfect of plays, is there such a major element as a war? What possible relevance could it have to Iago's plots and Othello's jealous rage? I contend that the war is extremely important--it is the very crux upon which the entire plot turns.
When we first meet Othello, he is the epitome of a calm, self-assured, non-provocative military general more concerned with honor, virtue, and his social standing than with war and battles. His very first line is, "It is better as it is" (1.2.6). This is a conservative, contented man, actually opposed to violence. Note how he breaks up the fight between his men and Brabantio's men: "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. Good signior, you shall more command with years than with your weapons" (1.2.59), and "Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter" (1.2.83). He commands extreme moral respect, much like Jesus in "Ben Hur" when he gives water to Judah under express orders from a Roman guard not to--Jesus has but to look at the guard for him to back down. Here, Othello demonstrates a commitment to non-violence unexpected in a military commander; and for that, his character shows goodness and moral strength, at least at the beginning of the play, before his fall. We see him as a man who walks with dukes, senators, and nobles, not a man killing people in a war, not a hint that he could become violently jealous and driven to murder. Act I is Othello's prime (Bloom 2).
Those who do not pay close attention to the play assume Othello's ease and contentment vanishes when Iago starts "poisoning" his thoughts about his wife being unfaithful. But this is not true. We already see Othello quite angry by Act II, scene 3, shortly after arriving in Cyprus but before Iago has begun to poison his mind, when breaking up another fight quite similar to the one in Act I, except that this one is between Cassio and Montano. At this second fight, Othello's reaction is quite different:
Far from the gently commanding leader who tried to satisfy both sides that we remember in Act I in Venice, here Othello is viciously reprimanding the fighters and actually removes Cassio's office.
The nature of the fights being similar and the nature of Othello's reaction being so different, we must conclude that some major change has taken place within Othello's character between Acts I & II. What occurred between Acts I & II, of course, is the war and change of locale from Venice to Cyprus.
I believe that Cyprus represents a foreign world for Othello. Not only physically, but, more importantly, psychologically. It is emotions and passion and romance--the exact opposite of reason and intellect, that he was used to in Venice, in peacetime. War, by it's nature, is not rational--it is emotional.
Emotions (particularly romance and its natural conclusion, marriage) are alien to the calm, rational Othello of Venice, and when he must deal with them, he's not sure how to handle them (Harrison 1057). His passion is his fatal flaw; it leads to his downfall, as it makes him vulnerable to Iago's suggestions.
But it is the war which is the catalyst for Othello's rage. We know from our own age and stories of veterans that war dramatically changes people. I have a friend named Bill who fought in Vietnam; when he came home, though he amazingly had no physical wound, he was so disturbed that it took him almost two decades to deal with his thoughts and emotions about the atrocities he had committed on foreign sea and soil. Like Bill and hundreds of thousand of veterans who could today attest to the brain-rattling experiences war brings, so did this happen to Othello in his war against the Turks. The war changed Othello from one who was quite self-assured and at peace with himself to one who was at war with himself and doubted even that which was beyond question--his wife's fidelity.
The game of "what if" is always so dubious, but I firmly believe that had there been no war and Othello and Desdemona and company stayed in Venice and Iago then came to Othello to tell him that his wife was being unfaithful, Othello would most likely have dismissed Iago and never given further thought to his wife's unfaithfulness. (If this were not that case, if Othello would have become vengefully jealous anyway, why have a war and change the locale at all, in this most perfectly-constructed play?)
Then we can see not Iago, but rather the war, as the true villain of this drama; because were it not for the war, Iago's treachery would not have been successful. And from that, we can now see an anti-war theme developing in this play, subtle though it may be.
There are two other subtle examples of Shakespeare's anti-war themes in Othello. The first is the way Act I, scene 3 progresses. That scene, in the Duke's council chamber, begins with messengers running all over the place and senators frantically going over conflicting reports about the Turkish invasion. Dr. Robert O. Juergens, while directing a production of Othello at Rollins College in 1988, motivated his actors by describing the early part of the scene as "the war room of the Pentagon and the Russians are attacking." (I know; I played one of those messengers.) Yet halfway through Othello's "Anthropophagi" speech (lines 128-170), all in the room are completely absorbed in the tale of wooing and the problem of a daughter marrying without her father's permission, which seemed so trivial compared to the threatening war at the beginning of the scene. Now the war seems trivial. I believe that Shakespeare is saying, with this progression and juxtaposition, that war is trivial, impersonal, and takes focus away from the more important things in life, such as intimate human relationships.
The other subtle anti-war bit is Othello's "Farewell to war" speech in Act III, scene 3 (lines 347-357). At first, it may appear that this speech is the opposite. It equates war with order, and as Othello's life is falling into disorder with the suspicions of Desdemona, he can no longer participate in anything that is orderly, such as war. This is the interpretation Susan Snyder gives (Bloom 30). Harold Bloom, too, implies this speech describes war as a confined and orderly event (5). But, as Mark Rose points out, this speech is Othello's way of rationalizing (Bloom 62). I believe Othello is using war as a metaphor. He is saying that like war, no longer being orderly, his life and his love for Desdemona is no longer orderly. When he says farewell to the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," he's not saying that he's leaving it; he's saying it never existed, though he once thought it did. (For if one interpreted the speech in the way Bloom and Snyder did, why should Othello leave orderly war when his life loses its order? One would think he would be drawn to something that is orderly. That is why I reject that interpretation.) War is irrational, and like war, Othello is committing irrational thoughts (such as interpreting his handkerchief in Cassio's hand as absolute proof of Desdemona's infidelity) and irrational actions (such as killing what he loves the most--i.e. Desdemona).
Some may say that the war could not have changed Othello, and point to his "battles, sieges, fortunes" in Africa in the early part of his life as described in the "Anthropophagi" speech. "Hairbreadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, of being taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery ..." (1.3.136). If Othello had seen such misery, one might rhetorically ask, what difference would one more battle with the Turks make? To them I would answer that perhaps it might have made him more emotional at the time, yet when he had found a secure home in Venice, he had become civil and rational. Two things we know for certain. One is that there definitely is a change in Othello, as we can see by the two opposing scenes where he breaks up a fight: so calmly in Venice, so filled with rage in Cyprus. It is as though there are two separate Othellos, as David Pollard sees (Vaughan 94). The other thing we know for certain is that Iago is right on the mark when he describes Othello as "of a free and open nature that thinks men honest that but seem to be so" (1.3.405). Whatever it is that Othello has been through, he has never encountered anyone, good or bad, to be other than what he first judged him or her to be. Despite all his adventures, Othello is naive; this leads one to consider discounting some of those early adventures that happen before the play opens. The play is not about them--their major reason for existence is to woo Desdemona. (This is to contrast Othello and his way of wooing women with the more common approach of the era--money. Roderigo believes it and Iago tells him several times "Put money in your purse" [1.3.344] to win Desdemona, even though it is stories, not money, that wins her.) Perhaps these African adventures might even be exaggerations.
On the other hand, Othello might very well have been quite emotional before in war. And Iago was there to see him. This we know within the first lines of the play. "And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof at Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds Christian and heathen ..." (1.1.28). That's how Iago knows what Othello will be like in wartime. When Iago hatches his plan at the end of Act I, the self-respecting Othello we know from that act does not seem like he would easily become victim to Iago's suggestions. But the irrational Othello of Act II, occupying a territory immediately following a war and imposing martial law, does seem much more susceptible. Iago knows more than we do.
So maybe the emotional Othello showed himself before, but he is not there in Venice, where there is peace. But where there is war, or the remnants of war, as in Cyprus, the emotional Othello waits vulnerably for Iago to poison him. The war with the Turks is clearly the dividing point of the play and the catalyst for change within Othello. It may have caused no physical harm to Othello, but it did quite a lot of mental harm. And that is the worst wound of all.
Works Cited
Harrison, G. B., ed. Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Harcort,
Rowse, A. L., ed. The Contemporary Shakespeare: Othello: Modern Text
Vaughan, Virginia Mason, and Kent Cartwright, eds. Othello: New