Deception and Dishonesty: Nothing Is As It Seems. By: Ivy Sweet

Transcription

1 1 Deception and Dishonesty: Nothing Is As It Seems By: Ivy Sweet Over the centuries, the masterpieces of William Shakespeare have been appreciated for their poetic language and beautifully written characters. The main characters in William Shakespeare s plays often contain a depth to them that make them very human. Some of these characters are quite good at appearing to be something other than what they actually are, which makes Shakespeare s works multilayered and complex. Two plays in particular, Hamlet and Othello, are built upon characters that are making themselves and situations appear quite different from reality. From the dastardly villains King Claudius and Iago to the tragically victimized protagonists Hamlet and Desdemona, Shakespeare s characters pull the reader or audience member into a world of darkness and deception. The events of Hamlet and Othello are driven by the characters inabilities to live in complete honesty with one another and their inability to prevent them from being pulled into the delusions set in place by other characters. The play Hamlet opens with deception already in place. King Claudius has murdered Hamlet s father and taken his crown, as well as his wife. The usurper misleads all of Denmark into believing that Old Hamlet was killed by a serpent, and puts on a mask of innocence that deceives his court and allows them to believe that he is virtuous. Claudius tries to maintain his guiltless appearance by behaving as if he genuinely cares for Hamlet like a son, telling Hamlet that he imparts no less nobility of love / Than that which dearest father bears his son (1703) and tries to seem concerned for Hamlet s welfare. To the court of King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, Claudius appears to be a genuine, honest man with his nephew/stepson s best interests at heart.

2 2 Othello s Iago, similarly to King Claudius, is a man who masterfully gives the outward appearance of being honest and true in order to conceal his dark wrongdoing. However, unlike Claudius, whose sin was committed before Hamlet even began, Iago is putting his treacherous plot into action throughout Othello. He calculatingly deceives the Moor Othello into doubting his wife s virtue, and gradually convinces Othello falsely of Desdemona s adultery with Cassio. Iago maintains his righteous reputation until the final scene of the play; just before Iago s wife Emilia reveals the truth behind Iago s deception, Othello says of Iago, An honest man he is, and hates the slime / That sticks on filthy deeds (2186) and soon after calls him My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago. (2186) The conniving villain succeeds in keeping up a saintly appearance until just before the close of the play. Iago and King Claudius fool their own wives and all of the courtiers into believing that they are good and true. However, they do not both succeed in deceiving the protagonist of their respective plays. While Iago is never doubted by Othello, and ultimately becomes responsible for Othello murdering Desdemona, King Claudius fails to delude Hamlet into thinking he is not a villain. Hamlet is aware of his uncle/stepfather s crime throughout the play, and rather than allow himself to blindly trust the man whose actions are the source of his grief (as Othello trusted Iago), Hamlet devises a plot of his own to deceive Claudius and all of the court into thinking he is mad. I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on, (1716) Hamlet says to Horatio and Marcellus after the ghost of his murdered father tells him of Claudius s crime. Hamlet s plan to feign madness is conceived to combat the deception that Claudius has already laid down; Claudius has murdered Hamlet s father and has successfully misled everyone into believing in his innocence, so Hamlet must get revenge for his father by

3 3 using his madness as a means of becoming certain of Claudius s guilt and ultimately killing him. Hamlet is driven to take on the role of a deceptive when he becomes the victim of the vile deceit of King Claudius. Hamlet s plot would not have taken place without Claudius initially committing the atrocity of murdering his own brother and lying to everyone about it. Just as Hamlet is fuelled by the need to take revenge on the usurper, Iago finds himself motivated to lie and manipulate in order to exact revenge on both Othello the Moor and Michael Cassio for supposedly sleeping with his wife. Iago says that he hate[s] the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that twixt [his] sheets / He has done [his] office, (2134) which makes clear his suspicions of Emilia s disloyalty. As he begins to lay the foundation of his wicked plot to trick Othello into thinking that Desdemona is disloyal, Iago states, I ll have our Cassio on the hip, (2141) which indicates his desire to trump Cassio. He also seems to harbor a certain amount of bitterness toward Othello for appointing Cassio (whom he fear[s] with [his] nightcap (2141)) lieutenant and Iago himself a mere ensign: This counter-caster, / He in good time must his lieutenant be, / And I God bless the mark! his Moorship s ensign. (2120) Iago, like Hamlet, is motivated to take revenge when he learns of the supposed treachery of someone who should have had complete devotion: his wife, Emilia. Whether or not Emilia truly did betray Iago by having an affair with Cassio is never revealed, nor does Iago elaborate on his source of this information, but as it seems doubtful that Emilia had an affair with Othello, it is possible that Iago might have been duped, either by some rumormonger or his own paranoid devices. To think that someone may have misled Iago would be highly ironic, as it would mean that the deceiver had been deceived.

4 4 The dishonesty and false appearances of characters such as Iago and King Claudius provide consequences for protagonist characters who have committed no acts of wrongdoing; Hamlet and Desdemona both find themselves victims of the atrocious plots of the antagonists in their respective plays. The fact that they are even in their respective situations is out of their control. Hamlet was not able to prevent the murder of his father or the marriage of his mother to the suspected murderer, and Desdemona was not able to prevent Iago from planting false suspicions in Othello s mind nor was she able to convince Othello of her honesty and loyalty to him to prevent him from killing her. Desdemona is easily the most innocent victim in either Hamlet or Othello, simply for the fact that she does not retaliate against the villain responsible for her unfair treatment and unfortunate situation (although she is not aware that Iago was the one who planted the doubt and suspicion against her chasteness in her husband s head). Desdemona is completely honest and true to Othello throughout the play, and never tries to appear to him to be something that she is not. She begs Othello for her life when he reveals his intention of killing her and futilely proclaims her goodness as he accuses her of being a strumpet. Desdemona does not try to use deception in any way to protect herself from her tragically unjust demise, and only lies with her very last breath in order to try to protect Othello, whom she still loves despite the fact that he has killed her: Who hath done this deed? Emilia asks as Desdemona lies dying, to which Desdemona replies, Nobody, I myself. Farewell. (2185) She aims to deceive so that her dear Othello will not be punished for murdering her. Desdemona was a helpless victim of Iago s villainy. Spurred on by anger and mistrust of his own wife that were borne from the rumors he had heard about her unfaithfulness, Iago selfishly designed a scheme to get revenge on Cassio and Othello for having affairs with Emilia without even knowing for sure if the rumors were true. Desdemona was a pawn with no control

5 5 over her fate as Iago deceived her husband and ultimately laid the path for her destruction. Likewise, Hamlet had to face the loss of his father through the deceit of Claudius, and was powerless to prevent Claudius from becoming a usurper. When Hamlet does attempt to seize some control over the misfortune that Claudius has bestowed on him, he does so by echoing the force that drives Iago; he seeks revenge. King Claudius and Iago wreak havoc by putting on shows of being good and honest while they are guilty of scheming and plotting (and usurping, in Claudius s case), which throws Hamlet and Desdemona into unpreventable misery. Due to these events, which contain seemingly unavoidable deception, it can be concluded that Shakespeare s tragic characters in Hamlet and Othello were unable to allow themselves to live freely and honestly without the threat of falling prey to the deception of the cunning antagonists.