Othello, Thorello, and the Problem of the Foolish Hero

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OTHELLO IS TOO OFTEN regarded as a figure of fun. In the view of many modern critics, the hero is a foolish victim of pride, of an immense capacity for self-deception.' A man endeavouring to escape reality, guilty of bovarysme, the human will to see things as they are not-T. S. Eliot's famous description of Othello has set the tone for much modern interpretation.2 Seeking to replace the earlier view of the unambiguously noble Moor with a more complex assessment of Othello's strengths and flaws, Eliot and others, notably F. R. Leavis and Robert B. Heilman, have seized upon and emphasized the potentially ridiculous strain in Othello's speech and manner. In the tradition of sarcasm initiated by Rymer, they treat the hero's error as if it were the subject of satire rather than of tragedy. Othello thus comes to resemble the jealous husband of Elizabethan comedy. This implied parallel, calculated to denigrate, fosters an understanding of the play that is as limited as the simple Bradleyan viewpoint.3 It is possible to see Othello as a dignified figure, fully capable of eliciting our respect and sympathy, even as we recognize that the jealous husband motif in the play does derive, in part, from the conventions of Elizabethan comedy. I shall argue that Shakespeare created Othello in the image of a popular comic figure, the imaginary cuckold; that he expected the original audience to accompany its recognition of the type with a conventional set of responses; and that he devised a collision between the audience's normally scornful reaction to the imaginary cuckold and the response dictated by the tragic nature of Othello's story. The function of such a dramatic strategy was to intensify the power of the action.