There are many parallels that may be drawn between Othello and The Merchant of Venice, especially as the play proceeds with Acts II and III. The title itself contains a subtitle of “The Moor of Venice,” a parallel to the title of Merchant. Both Othello and Bassanio face romantic turmoil associated with the influence of a supposed friend, and each have particular symbols of their affection that have been given great importance.

Acts II and III see Iago’s manipulations bear fruit as Othello begins a downward emotional spiral. He becomes overcome by his moods and loses his temper, and consequently his rationality. Taking Iago’s suggestions to heart and not giving his newlywed wife the benefit of the doubt is an example of emotional immaturity and ignorance. This harkens back to our earlier reading of The Merchant of Venice where Antonio persuaded Bassanio to act against his romantic interests. This is very similar to Othello’s situation as he too faces romantic destruction from the influence of a male confidante in his life.

In The Merchant of Venice, we see Bassanio give up the token of marriage of his ring from his soon-to-be wife Portia, at the request of friend Antonio. His ability to be persuaded by a male friend to give up an important belief in his romantic love shows a lack of commitment and independence. Similarly, Othello takes the rumors raised by Iago to heart, and tosses aside his once strong belief in their love. However, they clearly differ in that Iago is acting out of hate, while Antonio seemingly acted out of love.

Additionally, the loss of the handkerchief by Desdemona is reminiscent of the giving away of the ring by Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. In each case, there is some measure of trickery involved as Desdemona merely gave the handkerchief to Othello, and Portia entrapped Bassanio in giving away her ring. However, each bear a symbolic representation as almost the essence of their love. In Merchant the ring was almost the contract of their marriage itself, and in Othello, the handkerchief symbolizes the virtue of Desdemona, which must be given to Othello for their marriage to be legitimate and honorable.

However, Othello’s promise of vengeance on his wife and Cassio for their alleged affairs that he makes with Bassanio predicts a more ominous outcome than we saw in Merchant. It seems that unlike in Merchant where Portia was the manipulator merely teaching a new husband a lesson, Othello faces a far greater foe and does not seem to possess the fortitude to see through his trap to destroy his life.

Othello begins in rather particular manner in which our protagonist isn’t seen or named for the entire beginning scene in Act I. We do get other characters though specifically Brabantio who is Desdemona’s father. He should seem very familiar to us as readers filling the role of “The Father” he echo’s many father’s seen in other plays such as A Midsummer Nights Dream  or The Merchant of Venice. He reminds me specifically of  Shylock ironically. In The Merchant of Venice Shylock was tormented with the fact that his daughter would go of with a christian similarly Brabantio is equally as upset because his daughter is allegedly with a Moor. Brabantio says “Who would be a father ?–O, she deceives me” (1.1.161-163). These lines are quite similar to Shylock’s when discovering Jessica left.

We know Shakespeare does not use many family members, but when he inserts fathers in his plays they will have a significant role. This remains true in Othello there’s a sense that to get the girl men would have to woo the father. Roderigo is perusing Desdemona, but instead of going to her directly and trying to impress her the reader isn’t even introduced to her instead you have this encounter between Roderigo an her father Brabantio. As readers we’re not entirely sure of the relationship between Roderigo and Desdemona, but it’s clear that a forceful way into her heart is being on her father’s good side. Brabantio tells Roderigo right away “My daughter is not for thee” (1.1.95) stating very clearly his power over her. As soon as Brabantio discovers Desdemona is gone though he changes his mind about Roderigo and says ” Oh good Roderigo; I will deserve your pains” (1.1.180). We’re left to see what type of character Desdemona will turn out to be, will she be as rebellious as Jessica or will she be more like Hermia who would speak quite bluntly, but was astonished and apologized quite frequently for how she felt to her father.

When Desdemona finally speaks for herself we see she’s educated and aggressive telling her father that indeed she is in love with Othello and his stories. “That I love the Moor to live with him, my downright violence and storm of fortunes, may trumpet the world.” ( 1.3.243-246). She’s in a world filled with all these important men and she chooses Othello instead of her father. This is different from Merchant of Venice because we never got to see how Jessica would respond to Shylock. Jessica was able to opt out of the conversation of why she left and that makes Desdemona a stronger character as a woman. Desdemona is able to express herself and has enough confidence and self assurance in Othello and in herself to not fear her father or the Duke for that matter.

Othello may be of a high rank and have wealth but most people hate him. Most of these people that hate him are racists. Iago calls him “an old black ram” (1.1.85) and when he talks about him to Brabantio, he says: “Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you” (1.1.88). Comparing someone to a ram and calling him the devil doesn’t exactly show camaraderie. Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit by calling Iago a racist? Maybe he just hates Othello for no good reason.

What about Brabantio? When he’s trying to arrest Othello for bewitching Desdemona into marrying him, Brabantio says: “The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation,/ Would ever have, ‘t incur a general mock,/ Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom/ Of such a thing as thou-to fear, not to delight” (1.2.67-70) From what I understand, it seems that Brabantio is saying that Desdemona is an innocent lady who wouldn’t shame herself by running away to be with a Moor like Othello because he’s something to fear and not someone to take pleasure in. In other words, Othello isn’t anyone’s first choice as a lover so obviously Desdemona is under a spell and not in her right mind.

Or what about the Duke? At times he calls Othello valiant, and basically tells him about how much he’s needed for the war. Yet he says: “If virtue no delighted beauty lack,/ Your son-in-law is far more fair than black” (1.3.284-285). It sounds like a compliment; Othello is more beautiful than he is black. Reading it again though the true meaning comes through. Othello is beautiful because of his virtue but he’s not beautiful because he’s black. The Duke is racist and the only reason he tells Othello about how good of a fighter he is, is to make him feel valued so that Othello will continue to fight in the war.

Note how even the publishers of this particular edition portray Othello distinctly with his black skin color.

Are there any other characters that I might have missed from Act 1 that are racist toward Othello? Do you think Iago is a racist or does he hate Othello for other reasons? Or do you think none of the characters are racist?

First, a brief aside concerning nuns and their restraints and liberties. I recalled Otto Dix’s The Nun and Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa when we were on the discussion of Isabella last class.

Otto Dix, The Nun (1914)

In Dix’s painting, we see a nun’s internal struggle between longing for eventual eternal salvation and desire for immediate earthly pleasures. There’s an abstraction of Christ on the Cross on the left along with a vulva-shape. On the right is a nude figure who appears pregnant and possibly represents motherhood, an experience nuns must renounce for their faith.

Shakespeare is not just taking creative liberties when he writes sexual imagery into Isabella’s lines. Saint Teresa has described in her autobiography an encounter she had with an angel:

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it…

Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1647-52)

Bernini attempts to capture this moment in marble but of course, must subdue the fervor of this experience to make it acceptable for display in church. The figures are clothed, but portrayal of excessive fabric only emphasizes the face of St. Teresa, eyes closed, head drawn back, lips parted, in a state of ecstasy. The angel almost looks mischievous (sorta like Lucio) and of course the arrow alludes to some phallic symbolism.

Act 3 is where Angelo is absent and all the plotting is being done behind his back to be set into motion in Act 4. This was a thought that was playing in my head as I was reading Act 3, Scene 1 when the Duke impersonating a friar was eavesdropping on the two siblings and then talks to each of them separately to plot against Angelo. If Isabella is lovely enough to steal the prude Angelo’s heart, what might the Duke be thinking of Isabella that he is willing to assist her?

The Duke seems to be everywhere because then in Act 3, Scene 2, he encounters all the other characters such as Elbow, Pompey, Lucio, Escalus, Miss Mistress Overdone and the Provost. In disguise, he makes his own judgments about people like Pompey, finding what people thought of him through Lucio and seems to be testing Escalus.

Some interesting things are being said in the conversation between Lucio and the Duke which brings a lot of comic relief. Lucio is so brash as to spread rumors about Angelo being spawned by a mermaid and that he urinates ice and that he’s impotent and the Duke seems to be humored by this but then Lucio starts talking trash about the Duke to. The Duke says something curious: “I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way.” Is the Duke coming out of the closet?

I quite liked Richard III, that is until the final acts of the play.  This was the first play we’ve read that I found myself rooting for the villain.  But as we moved away from acts I and II, the cunning, planning, and finesse he once showed was lost.  We can see this in Act IV – Scene II, when Richard orders Buckingham to execute the two princes at the tower to solidify his position as king.  All he says is that he wants them dead with no real prior planning involved.  Then he immediately shows his disdain for Buckingham’s expression of reluctance in carrying out his orders, indicating to Buckingham that his death is near.  This of course leads Buckingham to muster up a force of rebels to fight Richard.  Then there is also the death of Queen Anne, which I felt was a little underwhelming as she is killed off-screen.  The only planning he had for the deaths of these three characters was that he hid them from the general populace and then assassinated them.  I feel like his ascension to the throne is what hurt him most.

The suspense of him trying to find ways to get the crown was what made him most appealing to me, but in the aftermath of being crowned king, his ability to foresee what the other characters would do was gone.  He was so preoccupied with keeping himself on the throne that he began to see threats in everyone.  Even the ending was disappointing for me.  After having everyone dirty their hands for him, he takes to the front lines in search of Richmond, like he was trying to throw his life away.  It’s the complete opposite of what he was trying to do not even a few pages earlier.  The way Richard met his end was anti-climactic.  You see him at the end of Act 5 – Scene 4, alive and going on about how he would give up his kingdom in exchange for a horse so that he may go slay Richmond.  Then in the beginning of Scene 5, we immediately see him get slain by Richmond.  Overall, I just expected something more from these last two acts.

On another note, while searching around for the events around his death, I came upon an article that details the blows he sustained during the battle against Richmond.  It also confirms that Richard III suffered from scoliosis.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/forensic-analysis-of-richard-iii-death-solves-mystery/

I was doing some research about Richard III and realized that his birthday is on October 2nd. So then I was thinking about what it would be like if Richard had managed to live over 500 years and was still around yelling at people, and stumbled upon this video simulation of Richard III delivering his first speech from Shakespeare’s play. It actually might be the creepiest thing I’ve seen in my entire life but it’s cool to get a context for what to imagine while reading the play.

As Act 1 progresses we see more and more of Richard’s horrible character shine through, which is kind of like the way his speech is delivered in this video. He starts normally and ends up screaming at the camera.

At the end of Act I: scene i,  we learned that Richard wants both of his brothers, the king and Clarence. dead. He also mentions that he wants to marry Lady Anne. At the beginning of scene ii, Lady Anne accuses Richard for murdering her husband and father in law and hopes everything bad to occur to Richard in his life. At first Richard denies killing her husband and father in law, however, after a few pages in the play, he admitted that he did kill them and says,  “Your beauty was the cause of that effect, your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep to undertake the death of all the world, so I might live one more hour in your sweet bosom” (I.II.121-124).

On youtube, I have found a short clip of this play that was recorded by the Shakespearean London Theatres. I thought this short version of scene ii was excellent and I was more engaged in the reading. I hope you all enjoy it!

Back in Act 3 scene 2 when we hear that earful from Portia how Bassanio is her everything and she is nothing I wrongly accused her of being a woman lacking confidence who is still being governed by her omnipresent and very dead father. When finishing the play though we see how she outsmarts everyone. Sure, she was still slightly controlled by the rather creepy presence of her very dead father, but she does get the guy.  A wide variety of suitors come to pursue her and engage in the lottery of casket picking, but she only wants Bassanio. Whether her choice in men is good or not isn’t really the issue (even though come on Portia, Bassanio? The guy who wants your money and is willing to let his best friend sacrifice a pound of flesh for said money? But moving on from that). Portia does manage to get Bassanio to pick the right casket because no one really believes that was luck (remember the music playing? Knowing now what we know about Portia she was probably giving very subtle hints). She breaks free from her father’s grasp and is able to marry the guy she wants while still saving the day back in Venice. Not only is Portia smart enough to twist the law to her convenience in order to save Antonio, but she gives Shylock every opportunity to be mercyful. She plays on his religious character and gives a speech on how powerful mercy is ( 4.1.180). Shylock doesn’t budge, but she did give him a chance which considering how badly everyone treats Shylock was very fair in my opinion. Lastly, remember when Portia gave Bassanio that precious ring telling him not to part with it or their love would be over? Well she puts this to the test when she cross dresses as the lawyer that saves Antonio then asks him for the very ring she gave him. Bassanio as expected gives it to her proving to her where his loyalties lie (ANTONIO FOREVER!) She doesn’t go into a fit though, she’s much to smart for that instead when they are all back in Belmont she says things like ” What ring gave you, my lord? Not that, I hope, which you received of me” (5.1.184). She goes on to even say that she slept with the lawyer to get the ring back. By the end it appears that the happy couple is going to be okay after all, but the readers can’t help see a huge caution sign for Bassanio– don’t cross Portia, much less for Antonio or there will be hell to pay.

(Above I have some pictures of Portia dressed as a man. I tried seeing how it would have been performed with a man playing a woman playing a man, but people are much more interested in the portrayal of Shylock in theater)

In Act III, Scene II, Portia speaks of music while Bassanio ponders on which casket to choose, “Let music sound while he doth make his choice, then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, fading in music: that the comparison may stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream and watery death-bed for him. He may win; And what is music then? Then music is even as the flourish when true subjects bow to a new-crowned monarch; such as it is as are those dulcet sounds in break of day that creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear and summon him to marriage” (please mind the informal quoting). There is a very potent poetic element that lives within this speech. She compares the triumph of love over death to the subjects that will bow to the newly proclaim king, love, and that this music will awake Bassanio and summon him to marriage. As we compared the different settings in this play, we spoke of Belmont as this fantastical location—coincidentally where the power of music is being spoken of. Essentially, it seems as if Shakespeare is conveying the power of music and love within this particular location.

Ingeniously, Shakespeare may have created a certain villain against this music, the alleged devil, Shylock. As we discussed, Shylock oddly and metaphorically described his home as a human, “But stop my house’s ears–I mean my casement. Let not the sound of shallow coppery enter my sober house. By Jacob’s staff I swear I have no mind of feasting forth tonight.” The masque of the Christians is the music he does not want his house nor his daughter to hear as if the noise of Christianity will corrupt the home. Additionally, Shylock is portrayed as the contrast of music, for he has “no mind of feasting forth.”

Antonio wants the music, pertaining to the dulcet sounds in the early morning for marriage, and his love to conquer but Shylock, in ActIII, is there to intervene and demand his bond from Antonio thus interrupting the conquer of love and music between Bassanio and Portia. Shakespeare wants us to see the battle between music and love and the tragedy force which is Shylock.