The Modes of Love in Othello

Abstract

According to the transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber, an effort to recover the fusion state with the Source or Great Mother by the separate self, Ego, was launched following human beings’ fall from grace in Eden. He asserts the drive to become an integral Whole is called Eros and is satisfied through the unifying effort of love between men and women. In attempting to recover its lost integrity Ego always fails as it is constantly deceived by its bottomless desire for accumulating possessions and seeking approval and sympathy. The characteristics of Ego always focus on identifying Ego with the body, possessions, titles, sex, etc. and thus prevent true unification with the Whole. In Othello Iago plays the role of Satan in Eden. Just as Satan tempts Adam and Eve, encourages them to doubt the Word of God, and eventually coerces them into breaking their connection with the Divine, so does Iago engender suspicion and jealousy in Othello which degrades and eventually destroys his relationship with divine Desdemona. In choosing Othello, a black Moor, Desdemona shows her love to be akin to the Divine Maternal love as she is capable of embracing even Othello’s racial background which many Elizabethans would have considered highly undesirable. Unfortunately because of his Ego, Othello is turned against her by the fabricated story about her dishonesty and comes to despise and destroy her despite her pure love. Through the love story of Othello, a black man, and Desdemona, a white woman, Shakespeare awakens the reader to the universal love between men and women and how it is but a pseudo-wish for becoming Whole, a yearning to be satisfied but ultimately suffering from insatiable want. Shakespeare shows that without the death of the separate self, Ego, it is impossible to accomplish true unification with each other.