Camurri | Darkness falls in Othello

After more than four hundred years, Othello is still a popular and relevant play. In fact, this tragedy is widely staged all over the world, thanks to its enduring themes of passion and jealousy. William Shakespeare explores such themes in a lot of ways, but mainly through the use of darkness and light. In particular, many scenes in this tragedy take place at night. To begin with, the First Act is set in the streets of Venice at night. This is a really turbulent scene, but Othello succeeds in calming everybody down with his outstanding eloquence: ”Rude am I in my speech, and little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace’ and with a brilliant captatio benevolentiae: ‘Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, my very noble and approved good masters’. In Act Five, Othello strangles Desdemona in their dark bedroom: ‘Put out the light, and then put out the light’. The Moor is fully aware that the consequence of his brutal deed is irrevocable: ‘But once put out thy light, thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat that can thy light relume’.

Other ambiguous and violent scenes are set at night, mainly those in which Iago executes his machiavellian schemes. Let me stress the importance of Iago in this tragedy. As a matter of fact, I am of the opinion that this character is the real protagonist of the play, whereas Othello himself is only the deuteragonist: the military commander may indeed be seen as a puppet in the hands of his unfaithful and malevolent Ensign. On the other hand, Desdemona is a submissive and artless character, decidedly lacking the complexity and fulness of the great creations of the Elizabethan Theatre. I consider it appropriate to end my short essay by quoting a famous sentence from The Tempest. In this romance, one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote, Prospero, who is yearning for revenge, thus defines Caliban: ‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’.