The analysis of this scene offers some valuable insights into understanding the motives underpinning Iago’s actions. While Roderigo is mainly driven by the desire to return Desdemona, Iago’s motives are more complicated combining the desperate efforts to compensate for his failure in front of Roderigo and, most importantly, to do the maximal damage to his sworn foe, Othello. His major purpose is, thereby, to arouse rage and hatred towards Othello in Brabantio and he uses colorful language rich in metaphors and imagery to achieve this purpose. His most “juicy” imagery is applied to two contexts: the fact that Brabantio’s daughter has sex with the Moor and the fact that his grandchildren will be disadvantaged in this or another way. For example, to heat Brabantio’s resentment about the sex between Desdemona and Othello and the future consequences for Brabantio’s grandchildren, he uses two powerful imageries. First, he emphasizes the ethical conflict saying that
“At this very minute an old black ram is having sex with your little white lamb. Wake up, wake up, ring a bell and wake up all the snoring citizens. If you wait too long you’ll have black grandchildren.” (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 30-33).
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Analysis of Othello".
Apart from the objective ethnic difference (a white Italian girl galls for a Moorish man), this imagery also contains an unmasked connotation for Desdemona’s innocents as opposed to Othello’s sinfulness. Thus, it can be easily deciphered that in Desdemona’s metaphor, “little” stands for “inexperience,” “white” – for “innocent,” and “ewe” – for “helplessness.” On the contrary, in Othello’s metaphor, “old” stands for experienced,” “black” – for “sinful,” and “ram” – for “big and strong.” This imagery is important because it reveals new motives that drive Iago: it is evident that except for the passionate resentment that he hopes to arouse in Brabantio relatively to Desdemona and Othello’s escape, he, meanwhile, takes caution to ensure that Brabantio dismisses any possibility of approving Desdemona and Othello’s marriage. In this regard, the cited above imagery is particularly sophisticated because, on the one hand, it relies on a colorful imagery that is certain to touch the heart of the father and, on the other hand, it presents Desdemona in the role of a victim to prevent any ideas that this might have been her conscious choice.
The power of the next imagery that he uses resides in a skillful combination of the sex theme that is supposed to arouse resentment and the theme of the future grandchildren that is supposed to arouse fear and concern. Thus, to heat Brabantio’s emotions, Iago describes the possible threats that Brabantio’s procrastination implies:
“You’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse. You’ll have your nephews neigh to you. You’ll have coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.” (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 30-33).
Notably, in the previously discussed imagery, Iago only warns Brabantio against the threats related to his grandchildren, here, however, he decides to up the stakes and to raise the tension which is why he points to the fact that the entire family should be hurt if Brabantio does not resolve this issue adequately. This imagery reveals all the impatience that Iago experiences regarding Othello’s defeat. He realizes perfectly the importance of vendetta in the Italian culture and his subconscious encourages him to use all the triggers (the daughter, the grandchildren, and the entire family) that can stimulate the right response from Brabantio. Here, he is no longer concerned about the destiny of Desdemona for his appetite for revenge is stronger than his desire to please Roderigo.
Another peculiar aspect that should be discussed while analyzing the given scene is rhythm. In this regard, it is the comparison between the rhythm of Iago’s and Roderigo’s speech that best illustrates the discrepancy of their motives. Thus, it can be seen that Roderigo does not rush Brabantio doing his best to explain to him the situation adequately. He follows the etiquette and avoids using any “dirty tricks” as opposed to Iago. The latter keeps interfering in Roderigo’s explanations and “shooting” series of threatening imageries at Brabantio. It seems to the reader that Iago speaks very quickly because he is constantly rushing Brabantio with phrases like “arise, arise,” and “now, now, very now.” On the whole, he mentions the sex theme three times. Two times out of three, he uses colorful imageries described before; the third time, however, he avoids any imageries but only makes an emphasis on the urgency of the issue saying
“I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.” (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 35-36)
The insistent and bouncy rhythm of Iago’s speech is used intentionally and reveals the true motives behind Iago’s words. Thus, his major concern is to ensure that Othello is killed. If he wants to kill him by hands of Brabantio, he has the only option but to rely on Brabantio’s rage. This rage, in turn, needs to be continually heated and Iago keeps rushing Brabantio so that the latter has no time to think about the situation and the available solutions. Notably, if one looks at the discussion between Iago and Roderigo, they can perceive that the rhyme of Iago’s speech is not always like this; instead, it can be slow and steady what proves the assumption that this rhyme is used on purpose.
Finally, a very peculiar aspect that catches one’s eye in the course of this analysis is tone and especially the difference between the tone of Iago’s and Roderigo’s speech. Thus, on the face of it, the situation is objectively more challenging for Roderigo than for Iago because it is Roderigo whose love affair on which he accounted failed. In this regard, it would be reasonable to expect that Roderigo should be less tactful and decent than Iago while speaking to Brabantio. However, the conversation between the three men shows that the most offensive and impolite tone should be found in the speech of Iago who has no objective (or openly articulated) reasons to be affected by the thrill of the circumstances to such an extent. This, whereas Roderigo addresses Brabantio with a “nobel lord,” Iago calls the helpless father “stubborn and suspicious.” One might suggest that this points to the general difference between the two man’s manners: the perfectly tactful and respectful tone used by Roderigo and the easy and loud tone used by Iago. However, this is not exactly true because Iago’s private dialogue with Roderigo that preceded their conversation with Brabantio showed that he can be tactful and well-mannered when the situation requires him to. Therefore, the only reasonable explanation of Iago’s disrespectful tone that he uses while speaking with Brabantio is that this tone is used intentionally to heat up the tension and to arouse more hatred in the man. In other words, he expects that his tactless remarks and comments should keep Brabantio’s anger growing. In this situation, he is safe because Brabantio is most likely to direct this anger towards Othello as the key cause of all his problems. In such a manner, all the three devices – the imagery, the tone, and the rhythm – assist Iago in approaching his main aim that is Othello’s defeat.
