Othello's Models I
Bill Long
Mining Julius Caesar
When most scholars speak about the models or the sources of Othello, they look immediately to Cinthio's story in the Hecatommithi, to which I have devoted a mini-essay. Indeed, the content and shape of that story gives the skeleton outline for Othello. But we have to look deeper to try to understand the models or prototypes for aspects of the character of Othello. Cinthio's story is brief and the narrative flows quickly. No attention is devoted to character development. I argue in this essay that Shakespeare had two characters from his 1599 tragedy Julius Caesear in mind as he crafted his portrait of Othello. These characters, Cassius and Brutus, help to bring into focus two significant traits of Othello: his precipitate decision to follow Iago's reasoning in 3.3 and his erratic mental process in 4.1-4.2 as he tries to congeal his heart into icy resolve to kill Desdemona. This and the next mini-essay will consider these characters.
Cassius
The aspect of Cassius' character significant for the portrait of Othello doesn't emerge until Act V of Julius Caesar. Before that time, Cassius is portrayed as a careful conniver, much like Iago in some respects, who plants letters in Brutus' door and ideas in his mind to get him to join the conspiracy. In Act V, however, Brutus and Cassius lead the forces of the conspirators against two of the Triumvirs (Antony and Octavian) at Philippi and a different aspect of Cassius' character emerges. IT IS HIS PRONENESS TO HASTY ACTION.
In JC 5.3 Cassius is bothered by how his troops seem to be fleeing from the forces of the Triumvirs, and so he sends Titinius into the fray and tells him
"Mount thou my horse, and hide thy spurs in him/ Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops/ And here again, that I may rest assur'd/ Whether yond troops are friend or enemy (JC 5.3.15-18)."
He wants to know the truth about the fate of his troops. So, off goes Titinius. Then Cassius mounts a hill overlooking the battlefield with Pindarus so that he can see how the troops are doing. However, Cassius' eyesight is not good ("My sight was ever thick"--5.3.21), and he has to rely on Pindarus' report of what he sees.
A few lines later Pindarus reports that Titinius is approaching some troops and they seem to be following him and maybe even chasing him:
"Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him./ Now, Titinius! Now some light. O, he lights too./ He's ta'en. (Shout). And hark, they shout for joy (5.2.32)."
In other words, Pindarus' account to Cassius gives the impression that the trusted soldier Titinius has been captured by enemy forces.
Armed with this news, Cassius falls apart. He asks Pindarus to stab him, which he does. It is only a little while later when Titinius and Messala re-enter that we learn that Titinius was surrounded not by enemy troops but by friends, and that his apparent surrender with shouting was really the shouting for joy at the troop reunion. But Cassius is now dead, and it is left to Messala to interpret Cassius' action. He says:
"Mistrust of good success (i.e., uncertainty of the result of his mission) hath done this deed./ O hateful error, melancholy's child,/ Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men/ The things that are not (5.3.66-69)?"
And then, in a plaintive comment after a series of painful questions raised by Titinius about Cassius' hasty action, Titinius says,
"Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing (5.3.84)."
Applying Cassius to Othello
This is precisely Othello's dilemma and his fateful choice. Like Cassius he cannot "see" things himself, and so beginning in 3.3 he chooses to rely on Iago to construe things for him. Whereas Cassius' nearsightedness was physical, Othello's was psychological. Othello cannot see because he is a soldier; he is made for the external battle against fearsome foes. He is unskilled at descrying the inward foe and fighting the internal wars of the psyche.
So, Iago tells him that his wife is unfaithful. Actually, Iago only gives that impression just as Pindarus gave the impression that Titinius was captured by the enemy by skillfully using words, and he lets Othello do the rest by drawing the evil conclusion.* Then, once Othello starts
[*Note how Iago leaves the matter open to interpretation while really promoting his own construal of events. "I speak not yet of proof./ Look to your wife, observe her well with Cassio,/ Wear your eyes thus, not jealious nor secure./ I would not have your free and noble nature,/ Out of self-bounty, be abus'd; look to't. (3.3.196-200)."]
on his noxious interpretive path, it can only lead to death. While Cassius' death was immediate, Othello's killing of Desdemona and himself will not happen for two more Acts. Part of Shakespeare's genius is his skillful stretching out the misconstruals of Othello for two more agonizing Acts.
Both Messala's and Tintinius' words in JC 5.3 could be directly applied to Othello. It is Othello's "mistrust of good success" that has done this deed. He feared the outcome of any "investigation" into the fidelity of his wife. Perhaps even broaching the issue was too scary for him, too overwhelming, too chaos-inducing, and he simply had to retreat to the certainty of a mistaken belief rather than the chaos of uncertainty. Even entertaining the thought of Desdemona's infidelity for more than an instant was too much to bear. Like Cassius, he had to resolve the issue immediately. Titinius was either captured or not captured. Desdemona is either faithful or not faithful. Unless immediate solid proof of fidelity could be adduced, Othello had to flee to the other extreme: she must be unfaithful. The "motion" regarding whether or not she was faithful simply could not be "tabled" or even "amended." It must be voted up or down, right away. Since no "proof" of fidelity was forthcoming (and how, really, do you give that kind of proof?), he had to go to the opposite extreme. In so doing, he had done what Titinius said Cassius had done: "Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing." If in the Bible the wages of sin is death, in Shakespeare the fruit of misconstrual is also death.
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