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READ THIS
This is an action scene. Iago needs both Cassio and Roderigo dead, and so he sets one against the
other. In the ensuing fight, Cassio is wounded whereas Roderigo is killed.
A LOOK AT RODERIGO
Roderigo always makes his appearance in the company of Iago. Always he is Iago's puppet, is always
willing to do Iago's dirty work and all for the promise of a few impossible crumbs. And he is always paying
Iago for something. What is going on here?
If you have not yet read the note on Elizabethan courting rituals and gifts, then please do so now. What
follows is based on it.
[Click here to see it: refer to the left column of the linked
worksheet.]
Courtship rituals were complicated, involving gifts which were taken to the woman by a Go-Between. In
Roderigo's case, the woman is Desdemona, while the supposed Go-Between is Iago.
When the play opens, we find that Roderigo is already using Iago as his Go-Between for his hoped-for
courting of Desdemona. He appears to have already paid lots of money.
In a real courtship ritual, the gifts did not usually involve money. No, indeed. We know that Othello gave
Desdemona an intricately embroidered handkerchief whereas most men gave an embroidered garter for
the woman to wear.
Why then was Roderigo making cash payments and jewels? Well, because Iago was ripping him off!
Indeed, he was making no approach at all to Desdemona but was merely pocketing the gifts himself.
What would Iago have done with a lady's handkerchief or a lace garter?
When Desdemona married Othello, however, one would have thought that Roderigo would have given
up on his quest. She could, after all, not get divorced. What therefore did Roderigo hope to achieve by
continuing?
The answer, it would seem, lay in Roderigo's entrapment to Iago's voiced opinions. All Venetian women,
Iago claimed, were happy to have extra-marital affairs. Marriage was therefore not the end of the courting
game.
In Valmont, the classic 1989 movie set in 18th century France, the manipulating Merteuil
tells her naive protege, Cecile, that one did not marry the person one loved: one made him a lover.
The reason was simple: society marriages were arranged affairs, organised for either political or financial
ends. People almost never married for love. If the woman had a real lover, therefore, there would be
plenty of time after the wedding to meet with him clandestinely.
Iago claimed that this was almost universal in Venetian marriages. Cassio, he told Othello, was
Desdemona's clandestine lover. It would seem, therefore, that he convinced Roderigo that he could
become Desdemona's lover, and Iago personally would bring that about by acting as Go-Between.
The courtship to become a lover would have been identical as a marital courtship, involving gifts. And so
Roderigo was convinced to "Put money in thy purse" -- and he continued to put money and jewels
in Iago's pocket in the belief that Iago would take them to Desdemona.
Roderigo was, therefore, probably not plotting to marry Desdemona. Indeed, that was impossible.
Nevertheless, Iago had convinced him that he could still become Desdemona's lover, for which he needed
to pay dearly by way of monetary gifts and jewellery.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come:
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home:
Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow."
- Why does Iago want Roderigo to ambush Cassio? (6)
[Need help?]
Killing Cassio is essential to Iago's plot to revenge himself on Othello. After all, he has meticulously built
up a picture in Othello's mind that Cassio and Desdemona have been sleeping together. What would
happen if Othello were to cross-examine Cassio and learn that this story was all a pack of lies?
In any case, he has also promised Othello that he would kill Cassio. It was therefore a bargain: Iago will
kill Cassio and Othello will strangle his own wife.
Nevertheless, Iago wishes to keep his own slate clean. One can't just go out and kill someone. And so
he sets up Roderigo to do it, promising him the glittering reward of sleeping with Desdemona if he does
so -- which tells us what a simpleton Roderigo is that he should believe Iago can give such a reward.
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- Will Iago really be at Roderigo's elbow? (4)
[Need help?]
Not at Roderigo's elbow, no. But Iago does intend to be hovering in the shadows waiting to finish
everything off.
It was important that both Cassio and Roderigo should die in the skirmish but such an outcome was hardly
likely. The probability was that Cassio, being the soldier, would kill Roderigo who was a civilian. Iago
would therefore be lurking in the wings, waiting to spring out and kill whoever survived.
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"I have no great devotion to the deed;
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons."
- What "satisfying reasons" has Iago given for Roderigo's killing Cassio? (4)
[Need help?]
The "satisfying reasons" refer to Iago's promise that, should Roderigo kill Cassio, he would be
rewarded with being able to sleep with Desdemona. In other words, Iago has told him that he has
arranged for him to have a tryst with Desdemona where the two would have sex together.
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"I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain."
- What is a "young quat"? (2)
[Need help?]
A "young quat" is an irritating or painful pimple or boil on the skin.
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- Why is Roderigo growing angry? (4)
[Need help?]
For many months Roderigo has been paying Iago to act as a Go-Between to arrange an affair for him with
Desdemona -- presumably to have sex with her. He has paid Iago richly in both money and jewels.
The jewels should have found their way to Desdemona as a secret gift but Roderigo has begun to suspect
that this has not happened but that Iago has pocketed everything. He is therefore rightly angry.
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- Why is Iago not concerned about who kills whom? (4)
[Need help?]
Iago actually needs both men dead. If either are captured, they will each spill the beans about Iago's plot
against Othello.
Roderigo, on the other hand, is also going to come after Iago when he finds out for certain that he has
simply being pocketing all the gifts meant to be going to Desdemona.
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- In the ensuing fight, who is it who actually wounds whom? (3)
[Need help?]
- Iago then kills Roderigo but can't get to kill Cassio before help arrives.
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- What effect does the fight have on Othello? (2)
[Need help?]
Othello hears the fight from the balcony of his residence. He becomes grossly excited because he thinks
it means that Iago is keeping his side of the bargain in killing Cassio.
Othello is therefore driven by an insatiable passion to fulfill his role of strangling Desdemona, and so he
departs for her bed-chamber to carry out the tragic deed.
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"Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash
To be a party in this injury."
- To whom is Iago referring when he speaks of "this trash"? Why does he suspect her to be
"a party in this injury"? (4)
[Need help?]
When Iago speaks of "this trash", he is referring to his own wife, Emilia. Of course, he knows very
well that she would have had nothing to do with it but, with the adrenaline of the fight rushing through his
system, he suddenly sees an opportunity of getting rid of her at the same time.
If he can implicate Emilia in the fight, hopefully she will be arrested and executed. That way he will be rid
of Cassio (even now he hopes Cassio will die of his wounds), Roderigo (whom he has already killed),
Othello (and with him Desdemona, although the latter's death would be of no significance) and Emilia.
Have you noticed that, throughout the play, Emilia seems to have irritated Iago. She is a faithful enough
wife and would never leave him as such but there is absolutely no love there. Indeed, her sharp tongue
continuously irritates him. Why not get rid of her then, by implicating her in the murder plot?
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"This is the fruit of whoring."
- What on earth does Iago mean by that? (4)
[Need help?]
Iago is claiming that the fight between Cassio and Roderigo was because of "whoring". In other
words, the fight broke out because both men had become irrationally jealous when they each discovered
the other was having sex with their lover or "whore".
In saying this, Iago is also alleging that it is his own wife, Emilia, who is the whore. It is she therefore who
has caused the fight by being a whore and having sex with both men.
It is, of course, highly unlikely that Emilia would be arrested even if the authorities were convinced that she
was a whore who had therefore caused the fight. Prostitutes were an accepted part of society, and fights
over prostitutes were probably quite common events.
Attempting to implicate Emilia in the fight was very silly. Did Iago really think that he would rid herself of
her this way? Indeed, such a stupid claim might have led the authorities to investigate his other claims.
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