Redemption in Death
By Suzanne Russo
The brilliance of a tragedy
lies in its ability to maintain its moral and the values it explores even
in the tragic ending or in the downfall of its heroes. William Shakespeare
does just this Othello, so quintessentially that the deaths in the
end do not only refrain from undermining or canceling out the virtues of
the play, but they actually restore them to the deceased, who have died
because they have lost them. In this play, love, loyalty, and honesty
are of foremost importance in the human condition, and when those are questioned
or lost, chaos ensues. The tragedy lies in the fact that the truth
is revealed only too late, and because of this only death can restore those
values. The loss or misunderstanding of the major virtues in Othello
lead to the tragic ending, but because Desdemona retains these virtues
into her death, she allows them to be restored, and when the truth comes
out, Othello dies to reclaim his honor and complete this restoration.
The
love between Othello, the Moor, and Desdemona, his wife, is strong from
the outset of the play, and Othello relies on this love and on Desdemona’s
loyalty. When Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, brings him before the senators,
accusing him of corrupting Desdemona, Othello is so confident in her love
for him that he offers his life if she says she does not love him: “If
you do find me foul in her report, /…let your sentence/ Even fall upon
my life” (I, iii, 117-19). He reaffirms this when Brabantio suggests
that Desdemona will deceive him. Othello responds, “My life upon
her faith” (I, iii, 289) Twice, then, he has trusted his life to
Desdemona’s loyalty. This not only emphasizes his love for her, but
also his reliance upon her love. He tells her, “And when I love thee
not, / Chaos is come again” (III, iii, 91-92). Love and loyalty are
the strongest virtues in this play, the basis of the two main characters,
and when these two are doubted, due to Iago’s duplicity, Othello’s prediction
of chaos is realized.
Iago, who presents himself as Othello’s confidante,
signifies the antithesis of the virtues of the play, and Othello’s belief
in the lies this villain tells destroy these values and lead to his demise.
Iago is disloyal from the start. From the beginning he tells us,
“In following him [Othello], I follow but myself. / … I am not what I am”
(I, I, 55-62). Iago feigns devotion to Othello only to bring him
down, and in doing so he makes himself seem virtuous and turns the true
virtue, in Desdemona, to vice. When scheming to make Othello think
that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio, Othello’s lieutenant, he
plays on her concern for people, and her willingness to help Cassio come
back into Othello’s favor: “So will I turn her virtue into pitch, / And
out of her goodness make the net/ That shall enmesh them all” (II, iii,
360-62). As the opposite of all that is valued in the play, Iago
is able to make the virtue of the other characters into their downfalls
without them suspecting it. He observes of Othello, “The Moor…Is
of a constant, loving, and noble nature” (II, I, 288-89). He then
plans to use this nature to “Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward
me / … Even to madness” (II, I, 308-11). Iago uses Othello’s trusting
nature and Desdemona’s goodness to create the chaos Othello speaks of.
His lies cause Othello to doubt Desdemona’s loyalty, and his own love for
her, both of which he relies heavily upon, and this leads Othello to his
downfall.
Though in Desdemona’s death it appears that love
and loyalty are lost, since Othello forsakes them for lies, they are in
fact redeemed. Othello thinks aloud before he kills his wife: “Then
put out the light. / If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, / I can again
thy former light restore…I will kill thee, / And love thee after” (V, ii,
7-19). He looks upon this murder as a sacrifice, so as to restore
Desdemona to her former virtue, and in doing this he himself will rekindle
his love for her, the loss of which has brought him to this horrible deed.
In this way, for Othello, the tragic death of Desdemona does not erase
the virtues of the play, but brings them back to life, by destroying the
woman Othello believes to have adulterated them.
If the audience is not content with Othello’s reasoning
for the redemption of virtue that comes out of Desdemona’s death, she herself
proves it. Before she dies, Othello advises her to confess her sins,
to which she replies, “They are loves I bear to you” (V, ii, 40).
Even when her husband is about to kill her, all Desdemona thinks of is
her love for him, reiterating the strength of this love, and her loyalty.
Her last words make this loyalty even stronger. When Emilia, her
servant, asks who has killed her she responds, “Nobody – I myself.
Farewell. / Commend me to my kind lord” (V, ii, 123-24). The first
sin the audience sees Desdemona commit is this lie she tells to protect
the man who has just murdered her. This self-sacrifice is the epitome
of loyalty, and her forgiveness of Othello, even after he has done something
so terrible, shows true love at its finest, and restores any virtues that
have been doubted throughout the play.
Othello continues to doubt Desdemona even after
her death, and only when he learns the truth does he realize the effects
of his doubt. When Lodovico, a nobleman, enters the room after Desdemona’s
death he asks, “Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?” (V, ii, 278-79),
to which Othello replies, “That’s he that was Othello; Here I am” (V, ii,
280). This might be deemed the lowest point in the play, where we
see the effects a lack of virtue has. Distrust has left Othello without
even an identity; where once was a noble man with a beautiful wife, now
stands a wretched one who cannot even identify himself with what he once
was.
Othello is at his lowest point right before he dies,
and in killing himself he redeems himself, again reiterating the virtues
already emphasized in Desdemona’s death. Before killing himself he
tells those present, “When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, / Speak
of me as I am…Then you must speak/ Of one that loved not wisely, but too
well” (V, ii, 337-40). Othello reclaims his honor, and leaves a memory
of the virtuous man he was before being overcome by Iago’s treachery.
His last words, spoken to Desdemona, express his love, just as her last
words express hers: “I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but
this, / Killing myself, to die upon a kiss” (V, ii, 354-55). Both
die proclaiming their love, and both might be thought to die for love.
Othello kills Desdemona because he loves her and cannot stand the thought
that she might have been untrue, and she accepts this death because of
her love for him. He then dies because his love for her is so strong
that the thought of living without her, and the thought of having hurt
her, is unbearable. Though it is tragic that the lovers die, their
deaths bring back to life the values whose loss has caused their deaths.
Cassio sums things up when, after he has been cast off by Othello, he
exclaims, “I have lost the immortal part of/ myself, and what remains is
bestial” (II, iii, 262-63). He is speaking of his reputation, which
is the part of each person that he or she presents to the world, and that
is remembered when he or she is gone from the world. The reputations
of Othello and Desdemona, and likewise the values that these two represent,
love, loyalty, and honesty, are tarnished when Othello believes Iago’s
lies to be true, and doubts the love and devotion of his wife. Only
in death, then, are these values, and these reputations restored, because
each dies for love, and utters love even in death. The tragic deaths
in Othello, then, do not cancel out the values explored in the play,
but restore them after they have been knocked down.