Ana Benderas
Dr. Chapman
Shakespeare
12 December 2012
The Honest Battle between Reality and
Perception
In
Othello, like in most of his other
work, William Shakespeare relies heavily on the use of puns to illustrate his observations
about human behavior, a popular
literary theme during the Jacobean period. Though the manipulation of multiple meanings
in a word might seem initially confusing, this tactic actually serves to
clarify absurdities and incongruities within the minds of readers. This play clarifies how imagination and
reality work together in the human mind and how they shape perceptions. In Othello,
Shakespeare uses the multiple meanings of the word “honest” to reveal the
discrepancies between reality and perception, challenging readers’ expectations
and mocking the arrogance with which they sustain them, to suggest that
ignoring reality only actualizes fears.
Iago
embodies one of the most obvious disagreements
between reality and perception when he manipulates Othello’s expectations of
Iago, who considers this foe a friend, advising us about the advantage of
facing the truth with courage rather than deceiving ourselves at a greater
cost. When Cassio offers to ensure that
Iago will carry out Othello’s orders accurately, Othello expresses this trust
for him saying, “Iago is most honest” (2.3.7), assuring Cassio that he does not
need to go behind Iago and double check his work. The basic definitions of the word honest
include “commendable” and “creditable.” Without even having to rely on the word’s
multiple meanings, Shakespeare
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highlights
a discrepancy between reality and self-deception right away. Othello wants to believe that Iago deserves
trust, yet Iago himself says that he has no intentions of being loyal to
Othello. The play offers enough evidence
against trusting Iago, and yet Othello never seems to accept any of the
hints. He wants to believe that he can
trust the man he appointed because he cannot admit his own failure in making
the wrong choice. Or perhaps he does not
want to bother with the task of finding someone to take Iago’s job, so he lies
to himself that he made a good choice hiring the fiend. Whatever his motivations for this
self-deception, clearly his illusory ideals guide him: the honesty Othello
forces himself to see in Iago does not exist.
Shakespeare (as he tries to warn us) tried to warn the protagonist- but Othello
allowed his own expectations, insecurities, fears, and desires to blind him
into his own perdition.
Iago commits this same mistake of denying
logic in order to believe what he wants regarding his failed expectations for
his future- an almost comical example that Shakespeare uses to highlight the
danger of holding this mindset of denial. In an arrogant speech Iago recites to
Roderigo, bragging about all that he intends to do in his future, he says to
him, “Whip me such honest knaves” (Shakespeare 1.1.51), telling Roderigo that any
honest slave is foolish and should get whipped.
Shakespeare, however, uses this statement to mock his expectations, revealing
to readers the foolishness of trusting many of our assumptions. The word “knave” can refer to either a slave
or a crafty, dishonest person (Oxfard).
The term “honest” can mean “a person holding an honorable position”- the
complete opposite of a slave.
Shakespeare thus mocks Iago’s statement and turns it into a logical
inconsistency: a slave who has an honorable job. This contradiction cannot logically
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actualize,
indicating that what Iago expects and sees can also never actualize. Shakespeare furthers this idea by allowing the
use of the second definition of honest: “Having honorable motives and
principles” or “sincere; not cheating; free of fraud” (Oxfard). A knave, meaning “a crafty, dishonest”
person cannot be “sincere and free of fraud-” an incongruity that also reveals a
lack of reality. Since there is no such
thing as an honest dishonest person, nor a as a slave with an honorable job, then
an “honest knave” cannot get whipped because it cannot exist. If so, then no consequences await him, and
therefore, no consequences await Iago either.
This conclusion, however, proves false for him at the end of the play
when he gets sentenced to torture. Iago
thinks he represents the opposite of the “honest knave” who should get whipped,
but in reality, that statement foreshadows his own fate. Shakespeare assures his characters and
readers that things do not always happen as we expect. It points out the foolishness of people’s
expectations and the arrogance with which we assert them. In the end, reality has final say over our
lives. Understanding him also
gives insight to answer the questions this text poses: What does Iago understand about the human
tendencies of processing reality? What
does he understand about innate fears and ego and selfish motivations? How does he manipulate them, and ultimately,
what do his devices reveal, not only about Iago, but about human nature in
general? An explanation of Iago’s
character serves as an analysis of human nature. In her article, Lucinda Birtciel analyzes him
saying, “[he] holds power over the fate of his victims and his audience,”
implying that even readers experience deep bewilderment by this character and
respond as entranced by his deception as the characters in the play. This idea suggests that
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our response to him and his actions
reveal something important about the way that we, the readers, interpret reality
through our own lenses as well.
Brabantio’s expectations of Desdemona
also set him up for failure when the plans he has for his daughter go in the
opposite way he would like, revealing the foolishness of placing expectations
on people whom we cannot control. In the
beginning scenes of the play, Roderigo and Iago barge in Brabantio’s home to inform
him that his daughter has run away with “an old black ram” (1.1.88), meaning
Othello. Brabantio, surprised and
skeptical, responds defensively saying, “In honest plainness thou hast heard me
say/ My daughter is not for thee…” (1.1.100-101), reminding Roderigo that his sweet
daughter had refused a romantic relationship with him. Brabantio, fixed on the image he wants to
have of his daughter, refuses to accept her actions and gives Roderigo an
aggravated response. To call attention
to this behavior, Shakespeare again exploits the multiple meanings of the word “honest.” Denotatively, Brabantio indicates that he wants
to be clear about something. By saying,
“In honest plainness thou hast heard me say” he means, “I am plainly telling
you;” however, the expression in Shakespearean times to “make honest of someone”
meant to marry them. At the moment of
this conversation with Roderigo, Desdemona gets married to Othello without
Brabantio’s knowledge, yet he feels defensive and protective against Roderigo’s
accusations of his daughter, which he badly wants to believe as lies. So he responds to Roderigo saying that
honestly, Roderigo will never make honest of Desdemona; but the joke turns on
Brabantio because all along, Othello is making honest of his daughter (in quite
a dishonest way). If Brabantio wanted to
be accurate he should say, “In honesty I have told you that you will not make
honest of my daughter because she is
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already
making honest dishonestly with Othello.”
To add insult to injury to Brabantio’s self-deception, yet another
meaning exists to the word “honest,” turning him into another one of
Shakespeare’s examples of fools who so badly want to see what they want, that
they deceive themselves to their own detriment.
“Honest” can also mean “being chaste” (Oxfard), but Roderigo’s very
topic entails Desdemona’s lack of chastity with Othello. When Brabantio says, “In honest plainness”
(1.1.100), reality tells him (through his own words) something like, “in an
honorable way I am telling you that my daughter is not being honorable because
she is having sex with Othello this very moment.” Shakespeare mocks the disparity between how
Brabantio wants to see things and the actual truth. Reality is hardly ever what it seems or even what
people would like. In
her article, Elizabeth Evans states: “the characters experience reality through
the filter of their imagination,” suggesting that people can never quite trust
or understand anyone else’s point of view because they understand that they
themselves also skew the truth to see what they want. In her opinion, this dynamic accounts for much
of the relational conflicts in the story.
She continues, “[the characters] attempt
to compensate for and protect themselves from this uncertainty by assuming the
worst, and their conviction that such assumptions are justified lead to
disaster” (Evans), meaning that what these characters fear the most actualizes
because of their failure to accept the evidence around them and see the truth. Her observation that the characters’ failure
to see reality becomes the cause of most of the play’s conflicts offers wisdom
to readers about the way that we also create or allow tragedy by distorting our
reality.
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This
play contains important warnings about the dangers of believing what we want
instead of adhering to the evidence that could lead to finding truth. To see or not to see becomes the decision
these characters confront, and their response to that question leads them to
each of their destinies. Shakespeare
teaches us that when we face similar situations, our decision should be “to see”-
to deny our fears and insecurities and to face truth with courage. The alternative to that decision, to choose
“not to see,” has the tendency to lead people in the exact direction they attempt
to run from in the first place.
Works Cited
Birtciel,
Lucinda. “The Problem of Appearance and Reality.” Texas Technological College.
(1963). Web.
Evans,
Judith B. “The Rush to Knowledge: Perception and Interpretation in
Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The
Winter’s Tale.” Georgetown University. (2008). Web.
Shakespeare,
William. Othello. New York: Signet
Classics, 1998. Print.
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