"Othello" by William Shakespeare

Литературный анализ трагедии Уильяма Шекспира "Отелло"

     The plays of William Shakespeare have not lost their currency even after five centuries. This happens due to some reasons. The most important of them is that he skillfully depicted all the characters of his tragedies, not only the main ones, but minor characters as well. The character of Emilia in "Othello” is a very bright example.

     Emilia is one of the characters in "Othello” by W. Shakespeare who differs from the other characters by honesty, sincerity and fairness. She is very quiet, taciturn and even uncommunicative. When Desdemona introduces her, she emphasizes that Emilia "has no speech”. Iago confirms that idea a little bit further: "She puts her tongue a little in her heart and chides with thinking”. Emilia really does not seem to be a chatter-box. But if a woman is taciturn that means in no way that she has nothing to say. She may not want to speak much on unimportant topics but if something bothers her, Emilia is able to make a speech. When her husband Iago confirms that Desdemona was unfaithful to Othello, she burns with indignation and makes a speech in order to protect her mistress from groundless accusations.

     Sometimes she says something and people do not pay attention to her words. That may be a mythological allusion to the famous Greece prophetess Cassandra – the daughter of Priam, the Trojan king. Cassandra anticipated that Troy would be destroyed because of the ruse that appeared to be the Trojan horse. But no one believed her. After Othello dismisses Cassio, Iago wants his wife to arrange the meeting of Desdemona and Cassio so that it looked as if Cassio asked Desdemona to plead for him. Emilia tries to avoid interference. She tells Cassio that Othello dismissed him because of his good attitude and for his own good. Unfortunately Cassio does not want to listen to the reasonable argument, but prefers to believe in Iago’s lie. Cassio does not want to believe the truth but let Iago draw him into his malicious intrigues.

     Emilia can be hardly regarded one of the main characters of the tragedy. She is a minor character. On the other hand this character is important to make a contrast between Desdemona and herself. While Desdemona is depicted as a romantic woman and an obedient wife, Emilia demonstrates her intelligence and some cynicism. The last feature of her character is revealed in her attitude to men, marriage and love. She even makes a speech to her mistress, enumerating flaws and faults of representatives of the male sex. She is a little bit cynical about such notion as fidelity. Emilia admits that theoretically she could be unfaithful to her husband if the price for it was rather high. That attitude makes a strong contrast to Desdemona who is so naive and romantic that cannot imagine a woman ready for this inadmissible and dishonest act. Actually this is a mere joke. However this joke is made by the character that is by no means comic in a very dramatic moment of the action.

     On the other hand, Emilia cannot be regarded a negative character. She is also a victim in some respect. What is more disappointing is that she is the victim of her husband’s evil plans and foul play. Iago has no moral principles and nothing stops him from using his own wife for reaching his selfish goals. Iago uses the strong friendship that originated between two women: Desdemona and Emilia. Sly Iago is able to estimate that good relations between the mistress and the maiden can make a very good background for his intentions: no one will suspect Emilia and all the more Iago. So he asks his wife to steal Desdemona’s handkerchief and he does not consider it necessary to reveal Emilia his plans. Then Iago drops the handkerchief in Cassio’s house and later uses it as an evidence to prove Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are lovers and that she committed adultery. Emilia does not know the essence of Iago’s plans, but she subconsciously feels that the theft of the handkerchief will lead to no good. But she can hardly contradict her husband and at last Iago gets what he wanted. Emilia struggles between her love to Desdemona and obedience to her husband. Though she realizes that Iago is not right and Desdemona is going to appear in great danger, her matrimonial duty wins and she lies to Desdemona, saying that she has no idea as to where her handkerchief can be. This episode reveals the essence of Emilia’s character and moral values. No matter what she spoke of adultery to her husband, she cannot commit it, even if she is torn between her husband and her friend. The authority that her husband has makes her take the difficult decision. Emilia is ignorant of her husband’s plans till the very end of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

     A lot of literary critics stated more that once that Emilia is a very complicated character. Though she is rather modest and taciturn at the beginning of the play, she becomes a real heroine in the end. That is not caused by moral and spiritual inferiority but by spiritual immaturity. She cannot think of the consequences when she steals the handkerchief. Emilia just wants to give pleasure to her husband and does not even suspect that his intentions may be evil and may cause pain to another person. So it is possible to speak about her blindness but not viciousness. But her character really rises in the last scenes of the play. Her death is her moral triumph, because she dies for the truth. Emilia comprehends that truth and fairness are more important that obedience to a deceitful and malicious person, even if he is her husband. Emilia unmasks Iago and dies with no word of complaint trying to sing the same song that was sung by Desdemona before her death.