Explore the idea of doubleness in Shakespeare’s Othello.
Doubleness and deceit permeates almost every scene and character in the play. Doubleness in the sense of fakery and insincerity is a central concept in identifying the self-contradictions within Othello and contributes to the seemingly contradictory actions and choices of many of the characters. Iago, the chief manipulator is not just double-faced, but has many faces, and uses his skills to enact his revenge. Through exploring how doubleness weaves through characterisation, action and plot, it is evident doubleness is a key idea within the play.
Doubleness is most notably identified in the paradox that is Othello. The play was published under the double title: The Tragedy of Othello; The Moor of Venice. The instant involvement in a paradox within the title itself stresses the theme of doubleness as an ongoing theme in the play. The title contradicts Othello as a character with the preposition ‘of’; within the context of the Elizabethan Era, a Moor can never be ‘of’ Venice. Another way to interpret ‘of’ is through ‘indicating the thing, or person whence anything originates, comes is acquired or sought’ with a distinct accentuation on ‘racial or local origin.’ Thus, the different ways ‘of’ is interpreted shows how Othello is both accepted and rejected by Venetian society. Othello’s peculiar status as insider and outsider to Venice is displayed in the way Brabantio vehemently opposes his and Desdemona’s marriage despite Othello admitting that ‘(Brabantio) loved me, oft invited me’. The significance of this revelation is that it embodies the system of assailed and confounded binary oppositions on which the play is structured. Even in Othello’s final scene, Othello identifies himself with a cultural other, ‘the base Indian’, seemingly recognising his duality: a prominent figure of a dominant culture but also alien. His final speech effectively dramatises his doubleness in reenacting the killing of the Turk: ‘a turbaned Turk.. I took by th’throat.. And smote him thus’ while also seeking to diminish it as he ‘stabs himself.’ In attempting to resolve his doubleness, Othello inadvertently affirms it. As Hugh Kenner says, ‘Paradox springs in general from inadequacy, from the rents in linguistic and logical clothing.’ Indeed, it is Othello’s insecurity and feeling of inadequacy that highlights his central paradox of not belonging in Venetian society.
Like Othello, a sense of self-alienation is ingrained in almost all of the characters in the play. Thus we see how doubleness is explored in dualities within the characters and their identities. Iago is uncharacteristically honest when he says ‘I am not what I am’, ergo admitting to his divided selfhood and duplicity. However, he is not the only character whose appearance differs from the reality. Nonetheless, he is possibly the only person who intends deceitfulness. Shakespeare intends irony when having other characters refer to him as ‘honest Iago’ and ‘good Iago’, therefore contributing to his concealed paradox. Once alone, Iago reveals “when devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows as I do now”, cementing his two-facedness. Moreover, Cassio furthers the sense of doubleness within the characters in the play when he admits that he has ‘lost the immortal part of myself’, suggesting that there is a dichotomy within him and what remains is ‘bestial’. Likewise, Othello is reduced from a reputable man and soldier to a brute, such that his behaviour ‘would not be believed in Venice’. Janet Adelman argues that Iago ‘can see his own darkness localised and reflected in Othello’s blackness, or rather in what he makes – and teaches Othello to make – of Othello’s blackness’. Thus she is confirming the belief that Othello and Iago appear to function as duplicates of one another, suggesting that their relationship is one of doubleness. Corroborating her statement, Rene Girard argues that ‘Iago is the perfect confidant because he is Othello’s mimetic double and therefore so close to him at times that the two men become each other’s mirror image’. We can see this in an extended quotation from Act 3, Scene 3, where they echo each other so as to form a fractured soliloquy of circling and recurrent suspicions that can neither be fully articulated nor fully suppressed:
IAGO. Indeed?
OTHELLO. Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught in that?
Is he not honest? IAGO. Honest, my lord?
OTHELLO. Honest? Ay, honest.
IAGO. My lord, for aught I know.
OTHELLO. What dost thou think? IAGO. Think, my lord?
OTHELLO. ‘Think, my lord?’ By heaven, thou echo’st me
As if there were some monster in thy thought Too hideous to be shown!’
Therefore, reaffirming their relationship as one of perverse psychic mutuality.