In Act 4 Iago continues to plot against Othello and everyone else. At the very beginning, as Iago is planting more seeds in Othello’s head by saying “To kiss in private?” (IV.i.4) and “Or to be naked with her friend in bed/An hour or more, not meaning any harm?” (IV.i.6-7) He practically drives Othello nuts and into a trance. Then appears Cassio and Iago convinces him that Othello has had a second epilepsy attack, that is best not to bother him. When Othello recovers Iago tells him that Cassio has come and that he shall hear Cassio tell how he and Desdemona have betrayed Othello, as Othello spies on them but remains hidden. Iago is brilliant enough to whisper as he mentions Bianca’s name to Cassio when they speak, so that Othello only hears Cassio’s reaction and laughing, which irritates Othello even more. What drives Othello mad is when Bianca enters with the handkerchief that Othello had given to Desdemona. By far the most shocking event in Act Four scene one is when Othello strikes Desdemona, it is so unexpected for readers and even Lodovico cannot believe his eyes. In Act Four scene two, Othello questions Emilia but he does not believe a word she says nor does he answer Desdemona’s questions regarding what is the matter with him? The most interesting exchange that takes in this scene is between Iago and Roderigo, in which Roderigo is no longer patient and wants to address Desdemona himself about the jewelry he had sent her but Iago refuses stating that Cassio will remain in Cyprus and Othello will take Desdemona to Mauritania, unless Roderigo kills Cassio allowing Othello and Desdemona to remain in Cyprus. In Act Four scene three, Desdemona foreshadows her demise. She believes she will die, yet does not know why and she sings the “Willow” song, which she heard her mother’s maid Barbary singing as she died for being in love with a lunatic.

In Act Five scene one Iago and Roderigo’s plan to kill Cassio takes place, Iago assures Roderigo that he will be by his side and that the two of them cannot lose to Cassio. Roderigo attacks Cassio but Cassio is protected by his coat and Cassio ends up injuring Roderigo, when suddenly Iago comes from the back and attacks Cassio’s leg. Both men are crying out for help when Gratiano, Lodovico and Iago approach them. However, Iago admits beforehand that both Cassio and Roderigo must die in order for his plan to work, so he kills Roderigo as he says “Oh, damned Iago! Oh, inhuman dog!” (V.i.64) Bianca comes out and is in shock that Cassio is hurt but Iago blames her for what has happened to Cassio. Emilia also enters and is told what has happened and Iago sends her off to tell Othello and Desdemona. However, in Act Five scene two Othello is plotting to kill Desdemona while she sleeps but he wakes her. He asks her if she has prayed and she says she has and then he asks her if she has committed any sins and she replies that she hasn’t. He tells her that Cassio has been killed by Iago and Desdemona begins to weep, she begs live one more night but Othello does not listen and smothers her twice, the second time believing she is still alive after he hears Emilia’s voice. Emilia enters and gives him the news and then Desdemona cries out “Oh, falsely, falsely murdered!” (V.ii.121) “A guiltless death I die.” (V.ii.126) “Nobody; I myself. Farewell. Commend me to my kind lord. Oh, farewell!” (V.ii.128) Emilia damns Othello and he tells her that her husband, Iago has shown him the light and been a great friend. Emilia in shock can only repeat “my husband,” not believing him until Iago, Gratiano, Montano enter and then Iago is found out by Emilia who he stabs and kills. Iago tries to flee but is captured and brought back, Othello stabs him but does not kill him, instead he kills himself and Desdemona, Emilia and Othello lie on the bed.

Overall, the play’s last two acts are very tragic but my consolation lies in knowing that Othello and Desdemona truly loved one another. Their love was so immense that they both wound up dead lying side by side in the end. I had never read the play before this class but I had watched the movie O (2001) based on Othello and I highly recommend the class to watch it if they enjoyed reading Othello.

In Act 2 we see Iago’s evil plan finally taking shape. While Cassio is on guard Iago persuades him to get drunk and leave his post. Cassio returns and stabs Montano after Montano tries to break up an argument between Cassio and Roderigo. As a result, Othello fires Cassio from his position as lieutenant. Iago tells Cassio in order to gain his position back he should persuade Desdemona to plead with Othello on his behalf; therefore Othello frequently sees Cassio suspiciously talking to Desdemona. In act 3 Iago manages to frame Cassio by placing Desdemona’s handkerchief in Cassio’s room; as well as making Othello believe his wife is cheating on him with Cassio. In my opinion, Iago is most similar to Aaron, from Titus Andronicus, because he really seems to revel in his evilness; telling the audience each step in his evil plot. At this point in the play I am almost certain the genre of this play is revenge tragedy because we have several people, Iago, Cassio, Othello, and Desdemona, who have all been wronged and have someone they can exact revenge on.

In Act III we are introduced the character of the Clown. He appears in two seemingly minor scenes and speaks only briefly, and yet I was left with an impression that his inclusion in the play was not a mere accident.

Observing the Clowns speech, I was drawn to the way in which he appears to obfuscate the language of others, and yet appears prescient in his knowledge.

In the first scene he enters following Cassio and a band of musicians. Music is a trope of Shakespearean plays often associated with peace, harmony, and trust. Yet the Clown appears to tell the musicians that Othello wishes them to cease playing.

From the Merchant of Venice there is the quote:

“The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.”

Granted this is taken from a different play, I still believe we can view the Clowns representation for the opinion of Othello as foreshadowing of the foul and tragic actions that are to overwhelm Othello. Because the Clown states Othello wishes no music, we can imagine he, Othello, is becoming close minded to any peace, harmony, or trust between himself and those whom he feels or is about to feel betrayed by, such as Cassio and Desdemona.

Cassio then questions the Clown:

“Dost thou hear, my honest friend?”

“No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.”

Shakespeare is here again using the Clown as a representation on the state of Othello. The Clowns lines are likely speaking of both Cassio and Iago, as Othello is not hearing the honest friend, Cassio, but hearing the other, Iago.  And yet Othello believes Iago to be the honest one, and so the clown depicts this by referring to Cassio as the other.

The second and final appearance of the clown is in scene 4 when he speaks to Desdemona. In this conversation Shakespeare utilizes the confusion of the word lie, meaning either to speak dishonest or to lay in bed i.e make whoopee.

“Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?”

“I dare not say he lies any where.”

“Why, man?”

“He’s a soldier, and for one to say a soldier lies, is stabbing.”

“Go to: where lodges he?”

“To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie”

“Can any thing be made of this?”

“I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in mine own throat.”

The obvious relation of this conversation to the main plot is how there is a great deal of confusion going on between who is lying on someone, being dishonest, and who is lying with someone, sleeping together.

Also following this conversation, we then witness a series of lies. Up until now, the only real liar was Iago, but in scene 4 after the Clown brings to direct attention this confusion of lies, we see Emilia lie to Desdemona after stealing the handkerchief, Desdemona lie to Othello about it not being lost, and Othello lie to Desdemona about the origin of the handkerchief. And so once more the Clown appears as a foreshadowing figure and as a chronicler of the thematics and tensions of the play.

It begins at nights in the streets of Venice when Iago is complaining to Roderigo about Othello choosing Cassio, one with little experience instead of him to be his lieutenant. Iago only served Othello for his own gain and there are implications that he will be a focal character in the play. Just from the way he speaks of Othello disdainfully, we know that he will seek a form of revenge against him. He is also the only one aware of the fact that Othello, now mentioned as a Moor has ran away with Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio a Venetian nobleman and he betrayed him by revealing his secret.

Iago is reflective of Richard III because he has a self awareness of how villainous he is and he has no remorse about it. This is also when we begin to see forms of racism, such as when Roderigo refers to Othello as “the thicklips” (1.1.65)

In Scene 2, he puts on a show for Othello to make sure that he believes in his allegiance by telling him that Roderigo has betrayed him and threatens him with violence again making a false show. There is a reference to Janus, a two-faced god and since since he himself is two-faced which was displayed when his personality changed from backbiting as soon as Othello steps away to becoming friendly when he comes back displayed the many different faces that he has.  As Othello and Desdemona’s relationship was accepted, Iago plans to use Roderigo as a pawn to separate the couple and to get his revenge.

The Duke enters, greets Angelo and Escalus, and thanks them for their service. Friar Peter brings Isabella forward, and she asks the Duke for justice. He lets her talk about her story and after she finishes speaking, he seems he cannot believe her. Angelo tries to interrupt while she is speaking, but she continues, calling him “an adulterous thief, an hypocrite, a virgin-violator.” Duke thinks that Isabella’s madness seems oddly reasonable, so he tries to find out the truth. And he finally finds out that Isabella begged Angelo to free her brother, but he said she needed to have sex with him to free him. She did eventually and gave up her virginity, but Angelo did not free Claudio and ordered his execution finally. However, the Duke cannot (does not) believe her at all, and he orders her sent to prison. After Escalus summons Isabella and with Lucio’s suggestion, the Duke’s overarching plan has been revealed. Escalus orders the disguised Duke imprisoned, and the Duke asks the provost not to cooperate. At Angelo’s behest, Lucio hurls insults and removes the disguised Duke’s hood, revealing the Duke’s true identity.

Angelo’s regret and shame are clear in this scene with his request for a death sentence. Also his earlier confessions of torment and his quick admission of guilt makes him a slightly more sympathetic character. However, the Duke does not listen to him and he orders to marry Mariana, and the Act 5 ens with Duke’s speech commending the characters’ virtue and hoping for a pleasant married life with Isabella.

I believe this conclusion brings a typical “marriage plot” resolution to the play and allows justice to be served, besides that Angelo is granted. Many of people might think that it is in many ways an appropriate “measure for measure” penalty for Angelo, but I don’t agree with them. I thought even though he has been punished by having to suffer the shame of what he had done, it is not enough. Consequently, he tried to destroy one’s happy marriage under the name of measure, which I think not fair enough.

In Act III, scene 1, we observe Claudio’s conversation with his sister, Isabella, of how Claudio can avoid being put to death. Isabella says, “Is’t not a kind of incest, to take life from thine own sister’s shame?”(3.1.138-139). I think from this quote she is comparing her virtues of being clean from fornication to Claudio’s unjustified actions in the eyes of the law. Isabella believes that if she was to give up her virginity to the Duke, it would go against everything she believed in. She reinforces this idea by saying, “I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born.”(3.1.191-193). As we can see, Isabella is willing to die for Claudio but not risk losing her virginity. It is clear through her actions that not being chaste and having sex before marriage were not only frowned upon, but were extremely unlawful during the 16th Century of England.

In Isabella’s conversation with Claudio, it almost seemed as if she was testing her brother to see if he would defend her virtues of being pure. She gradually starts talking about death and how it’s not something to be feared; it is almost as if she is convincing him to want to die. At first, it seemed that Claudio did not want his sister to give in her virginity to save his life. After what seemed like countless unsuccessful attempts to convince her to say that she would be unclean, Claudio abandons what he said about her staying true to herself. As an audience, I feel for Isabella to be trapped in a decision involving her true virtues or her brother’s life. In my opinion, being one who abides strictly by the principles of the law, it will be easy to turn Claudio down because what he did was clearly wrong. In contrast, a woman’s pureness must have been practiced heavily during the time. So it wasn’t something that can be easily dismissed. I’m compelled to believe that Isabella didn’t give in to Claudio’s plead partly because she felt betrayed by her brother to tell her otherwise right after he agreed for her not to do it.

In the first act of Measure for Measure, the line “There’s not a soldier of us all, that, in/the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition/well that prays for peace” stuck out as being a sort of summation of how the characters feel about the situation with Lord Angelo in charge (1.2.110-114).  Soldiers understand that they are not supposed to want to go to war, but they do not try to pray earnestly to prevent it because there is a part of them which enjoys warring.  The characters of the play understand that, as Christians, they are not supposed to desire or engage in extramarital sexual encounters, but their overwhelming want for such encounters make them disapprove of attempts to prevent it outright, or punish it so harshly.  Like the soldiers, they understand the way they are “supposed” to act and feel, but the reality of their situation is at odds with what is expected of them.  They see lechery as only a minor crime, much in the same way that we would view jaywalking.  Isabella understands that her brother can be put to death from a legal and even (in her strict, rigid, virginal opinion) moral standpoint, but she does not want him to die because she loves him in spite of his actions, and because he’s ultimately still a good person who engaged in a mutually consensual act.  There is a divide between what the laws say, and what we recognize as “virtuous,” with the realities of human behavior and desire.  This divide permeates both acts of the play, from Claudio and Juliet’s premarital sex, to the legality of the brothel, to Lord Angelo’s own blackmailing of Isabella.

Other than the moral argument itself about sex, the play evokes the longstanding dispute between de facto and de jure in lawmaking and governance, with de facto being the state of things in practice and de jure being the written laws themselves.  Vincentio is obviously upset by the fact that the de facto state of affairs is to ignore the de jure laws which were instilled.  The kinds of laws which are ignored so widely are said to be in a state of “desuetude.”  Lord Angelo is introduced to implement a Draconian, letter-of-the-law style of governance.  He resolves to make the law something more than just a “scarecrow” which is eventually used by its targets as a perch (2.1.4).

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is abundant in humor, irony, and could very well be considered a possible offense to aristocracy and all those who would be dogmatic, arrogant and to throw it back for my Shakespearean scholars- cocksure. Even title of the play “Twelfth Night” seems to suggest a feeling of “trading places” as well as disorder. I don’t mean to say Shakespeare in the creation of this play had intended to suggest rebellion but as Sarah mentioned in an earlier blog post the subversion and inversion of class structure is undeniable.

One would assume that the role of a Clown in 16^th century theatre would be to act foolishly, yet in “Twelfth Night” the Clown is actually depicted as quite the wise fellow, suggesting that not everyone who appears foolish is actually a fool, and conversely, not everyone who would appear qualified to rule is. Further more Shakespeare would appear to be anti-establishment based on his sense of humor. You know how people say you can tell a lot by someone by what makes them laugh. Well it’s my opinion that Shakespeare was likely in opposition to the idea of social hierarchy and following the rules. For example if Shakespeare were a God fearing member of the Church he probably wouldn’t dare to make Malvolio, a devout puritan, the butt of the joke as we see during last acts. One would assume that if Shakespeare were to hold order or the church in high esteem he would have used his voice to convey a message of obedience; instead he creates a series of unfortunate events for the most “pro-rule” character in the play- Malvolio who’s name even suggest he “wants bad.” Looking back at Titus Andronicus we can see how he shared similar behaviors with Malvolio, having always followed the rules, which as we know didn’t work out so greatly for him. First Titus selects the wrong Emperor, chooses to sacrifice the future Queens first-born son, kills his own son, and eventually kills his only daughter all because he was following the rules. I’m no expert but I say, if Titus had loosened up even a little bit his life would have been just a tiny bit easier.

Okay back to “Twelfth Night” I believe Malvolio is having such an awful time because unlike everyone else in the play he clings to his identity, is resistant to change, and refuses to participate in the madness that we call humor. To wrap it up a lot of the themes in “Twelfth Night” question gender roles, advocate chaos, and challenge class structure. Despite my confusing thoughts one thing is certain, this classic light-hearted romantic comedy is coupled with all the plot complexities and character intricacies Shakespeare is known for.

When Malvolio goes to see Olivia after he finds “her” letter:

(Mark Rylance as Olivia)