Storytelling, Self, Society, 7: 6371, 2011 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 1550-5340 print / 1932-0280

0 online DOI: 10.1080/15505340.2011.535725

The Power of Words: Othello as Storyteller

Monica Beckner Robison

The Moor of Venice is not only a valiant warrior but also a man who knows the power of words. It is not simply Othellos prowess on the battleeld that wins him his role in the Senate and the hand of Desdemona. Rather, it is his storytelling, his ability to create and recreate his lifes narrative, that enables his success in civilian life. This paper argues that Othello does not merely believe that individual, abstract words signify actuality but also that words can create actuality when they are spoken. From the time Othello bids Iago to give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words, he gives over control of his own narrative and therefore, his future.

In Act One of Othello, Brabanzio, the father of Desdemona, confronts his new son-in-law in the presence of the Duke. Furious over his daughters elopement, he insists that Othello must have engaged in witchcraft to coerce her into this interracial marriage. Othello reveals that, in fact, the courtship was based upon words; more specically, that Desdemona fell in love with him as she listened to his stories. The Duke, clearly convinced that Othello is an honorable man, attempts to console Brabanzio, listing the reasons why anger should be forgotten and peace embraced. Brabanzio rebuts this argument, however, saying, But words are words. I never did hear/That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear (1.3.21720). Brabanzio dismisses language as impotent, rejecting the possibility that Othellos stories could have won the heart of Desdemona. From Othellos perspective, however, words are never just merely words. Othello is the great storyteller. His heroic tales of war, slavery, and travel create his actuality and his identity: that of army general, renowned warrior, respected citizen, and adored husband. Stephen Greenblatt refers to Othellos stories as narrative selffashioning, stating that Othello characteristically responds to his experience by shaping it as a story (243). Lisa Hopkins writes of Othellos absolute faith in the reliability of his own story as a transparent mediator of his experiences (164).

Address correspondence to Monica Beckner Robison, Department of English, RB297, Ball State University, 2000 W. University Avenue, Muncie, IN 47306. E-mail: mlrobison@bsu.com

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Similarly, James L. Calderwood points out that Othellos being and doing are embedded in speech, as though the events of his life were being lived just one [Tristram] Shandy-like step ahead of the words that seize and digest them into story (295). Yet I would argue that Othellos belief in the power of stories is even more radical than these critical analyses demonstrate. Rather than merely responding to experience by shaping it as a story, Othello shapes his future through stories. Even at the plays moment of crisis, when Othello demands ocular proof, it is not the physical handkerchief that is important, but the story of the handkerchief and its implications for the future which leads to tragedy. I further propose that the narrative performances in Othello might both clarify and be claried by concepts associated with speech-act theory, specically the notion of performative utterances as dened by J.L. Austin and redened by Jacques Derrida.

STORY AND EMPATHY The progression toward tragedy via storytelling begins with Othellos marriage. Having landed in Venice from an exotic, mystical culture, he uses stories not just to frame and interpret his background or to create his present identity but also to anticipate future events. Desdemona becomes part of Othellos present and future when she begins empathizing with his story. Her empathy leads her to become incorporated into his life story, not merely because she admires his past actions, but because she comes to see Othellos visage in his mind (1.3.251). Desdemona enters his mind through these tales, becoming integral to Othellos very existence in both the present and the future. As his life story becomes their life story, both partners become condent in their equality and aware of their interdependence. Indeed Desdemona not only travels to Cyprus with her husband, but she also speaks freely to him regarding any issue, including Cassios dismissal. Eamon Grennan points out that [n]o one else speaks to Othello like this, as an equal (286). Certainly Othello himself recognizes how Desdemona is inextricably woven into his life story when he says to himself: Perdition catch my soul / But I do love thee, and when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again (3.3.9193). That is to say, losing his love for Desdemona would mean losing his own narrative. It is hardly surprising that Iago chooses to focus upon Othellos marriage as the means of undoing the Moors future. As Othellos lieutenant, his proximity to his enemy allows him ample opportunity to perceive Desdemonas importance. In a moment of disgust, he comments that Othellos soul is so enfettered to her love / That she may make, unmake, do what she list (2.3.320). Armed with this knowledge, Iago is able to enter Othellos mind using the same empathic technique as Desdemona but without her good intentions. Julia Genster notes that Iago in fact excels at imagining the other as himself, [but this] affective substitution may sometimes not so much draw the empathizer into the other as empty the

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other out of himself. The empathizer may collapse the others story into his own (797). Iago, as representative of the Venetian culture and Western mindset, proceeds to deconstruct Othellos narrative by instructing him about life and marriage in Venice. In Act three, scene three, he tells Othello, I know our country disposition well. Proceeding from this position of authority, he reminds Othello that interracial marriage is considered unnatural from a Venetian perspective. He also insists that Venetian women do not avoid adultery; they just avoid getting caught. While Othello may be a great storyteller, Iago is the great wordsmith, schooling Othello in Western ideology and linguistic interpretation. Using words to create vivid imagery, Iago is able to colonize Othellos mind [and] claim that territory for his own (789).

COLONIZATION OF NARRATIVE Keeping in mind that Renaissance England was not yet infected by a national desire to colonize Africa, the narrative power struggle between Othello and Iago as individuals nonetheless anticipates that political impetus.1 Considering their speech acts as a microcosmic example of hegemonic forces, it is not surprising that Iagos narrative subsumes that of Othello. Iagos cultural authority demonstrates how legitimation by power takes shape. Power is not only good performativity, but also effective verication and good verdicts. . . . It is self-legitimating, in the way a system organized around performance maximization seems to be (Lyotard 47). Therefore, while Othello is positioned above Iago in terms of the states hierarchy, his willingness to accept Iagos narrative as legitimate instead of asserting his own quickly disempowers him. Once Iago has established himself as an authority within Othellos mind, his plan to abuse Othellos ears allows him to change the narrative that guides Othellos future (1.3.377). James L. Calderwood writes that Othello naively assumes that even the most ethereal of words are bonded to their meanings and that their meanings are bonded to the things they represent (295). That Othello is nave regarding Venetian culture seems indisputable. Yet Othello does not merely believe that abstract words (for example honest) signify actuality, but that words can create actuality when they are spoken. It is precisely this potentiality of language that is addressed by speech-act theory; most notably in J.L. Austins use of the term performative.

SPEECH AND EVENT Austin discussed the difference between constative utterances, which are statements of fact that can be proven or disproven, and performative utterances.

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Language functions in the latter manner when [t]he uttering of the words is, indeed, usually a, or even the, leading incident in the performance of the act, the performance of which is also the object of the utterance (8). One example of this would be a marriage ceremony. When a couple is verbally pronounced married, they immediately are married, as those words have brought about a change in actuality. Austin placed certain qualiers on this type of speech, however, noting that utterances were only performative when spoken in the proper context. Speaking generally, it is always necessary that the circumstances in which the words are uttered should be in some way, or ways, appropriate, and it is very commonly necessary that either the speaker himself or other persons should also perform certain other actions, whether physical or mental actions or even acts of uttering further words (8). This potentiality of speech to create event characterizes Othellos relationship to words and, as we shall see, his recursive view of history.2 Coming from an oral tradition, Othello has always used stories to create his actuality. From the time Othello bids Iago to give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words, he gives over control of his own narrative and therefore, his future (3.3.138). This distinction between words signifying actuality versus creating actuality is signicant in terms of how the audience understands the tragic ending. If Othello is merely goaded to jealousy by insinuations that can be disproved, then he can be dismissed as an illogical lunatic. However, if we understand words and stories as linked to future events in the same manner in which Othello does, we can then see that whether Desdemona has been faithful in the present is not as relevant as what she will become if Othello allows this narrative to continue. As Iagos narrative proceeds from generalizations about Venetian culture to the particular relationship between Desdemona and Cassio, he ocularizes his language, painting lascivious images of Cassio and Desdemona in the ction of the dreaming Cassio (Calderwood 297). This agitates Othello, perhaps even more than Iago expected. Yet Othello has also been absorbing Iagos education in the ways of Western logic. He has been taught the values of empirical observation. He intends to have visual evidence before he takes action, thus he angrily tells Iago, Give me the ocular proof (3.3.365). At this crisis moment in the play, Iago, realizing he will never be able to orchestrate an observable act of adultery out of an imaginary one, chooses to center all of this proof in a simple little handkerchief. Perhaps Iago could have chosen from among a number of trinkets or tokens. Certainly he knows that Desdemona treasures this handkerchief, for his wife Emilia is her attendant, and he has been urging Emilia to steal the item and give it to him. Yet it seems unlikely Iago knows the story behind the handkerchief when even Desdemona is unaware of it. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, Iago chooses the one object that is attached to a story that portends the future and therefore instigates the tragedy.

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STORY AND HISTORY When Othello asks Desdemona for the handkerchief and she realizes it is lost, both she and the audience learn for the rst time the story behind this innocuous object. Othello reveals,
That handkerchief Did an Egyptian to my mother give. She was a charmer, and could almost read The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father Entirely to her love; but if she lost it, Or made a gift of it, my fathers eye Should hold her loathed (3.4.5360)

Yet because Desdemona is part of him, it is not just her who Othello must loathe but also himself as well. When Othello exclaims It is not words that shakes me thus he means it; for it is not the words themselves but the events they portend that devastate him to the point of physical collapse. Iagos deconstruction of Othellos narrative is complete when the marriage bond is destroyed. Stanley Cavell notes of Othello, To say he loses Desdemonas power to conrm his image of himself is to say that he loses his old power of imagination. And this is to say that he loses his grasp of his own nature; he no longer has the same voice in his history (130). Othellos voice literally changes as his speech turns from verse to prose in Act four and progressively degenerates into nearly nonsensical ramblings (Calderwood 297). Likewise, in this same Act, we witness a transformation in Desdemonas voice that mirrors that of her husband. For Othello, the story behind the handkerchief is performative in the present, just as it was in the past. Because the performative is a communication which is not limited strictly to the transference of a semantic content that is already constituted and dominated by an orientation toward truth, the story itself is more powerful than the veriable and nonveriable facts surrounding the actual object of the handkerchief (Derrida 1314). That noted, it now becomes important to discuss Derridas response to Austins theories, namely Derridas use of the term iterability. NARRATIVE, ITERATION AND RE-ITERATION Despite Austins insistence upon proper context for a performative to be successful, Derrida counters that utterances are performative because they are repeatable (iterable) in numerous, in fact limitless, contexts. He asks, Could a performative utterance succeed if its formulation did not repeat a coded or iterable utterance, or in other words, if the formula I pronounce in order to open a meeting, launch

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a ship or a marriage were not identiable as conforming with an iterable model, if it were not then identiable as a citation? (18) While I will later examine how this concept of iterability might affect the conclusion of Othello, at this point Derrida establishes a linguistic connection between history and future that seems akin to Othellos understanding and use of story. Unfortunately, Othello has not iterated the handkerchief story to Desdemona; therefore, she has no power to resist Othellos narrative as she did her fathers. In the foreboding scene three, Emilia and Desdemona have a few moments alone together at the end of an evening. While Emilia assists Desdemona in preparing for bed, the women chat about men and marriage. Desdemonas words are a testament to how interwoven the narrative is between Desdemona and her storyteller husband. For this poignant scene is ostensibly colored by an atmosphere of intimacy, but actually it is largely structured by absences and silences, as Desdemona, instead of revealing to us her own innermost thoughts, tells us a story of a woman who told a story (Hopkins 169). It is crucial to mention here, that just as Othellos handkerchief story is a handed-down story that predicts the future, so also is Desdemonas story of the maids willow song. Desdemona explains to Emilia that this maid had a song of willow. / An old thing twas, but it expressed her fortune, / And she died singing it (4.3.2730). After singing the song, Desdemona dismisses Emilia and falls asleep. Just before Othello wakens his wife in their bedchamber, he gives his reasons for slaying her, saying, Yet she must die, else shell betray more men (5.2.6). The use of the word more in this instance could be a pun on the word Moor. Even assuming the word choice indicates his belief in Desdemonas past indelity, a few lines later he reveals additional information. When he wakes Desdemona, Othello tells her she will die soon: Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin, / For to deny each article with oath / Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception / That I do groan withal (5.2.5861). These words indicate that it does not matter whether his wife has committed adultery or not; she will be sacriced. Intriguingly, Othello uses the imagery of childbirth to describe why he must carry out this act. Once his future storyline turns out to be that of a cuckold, there is no way for Othello to change it; nor with his keen sense of justice can he live with it. Julia Genster writes: If the cuckolds shame is that he is rearing another mans children, in Othello where the selfs continued existence depends on the capacity to turn its life into narrative, the cuckolds shame, and Othellos tragedy, is that his imagination is no longer his own: he is bringing up the children of another mans fancy (801). Therefore, what has been conceived in his mind by Iago must come to fruition. The only way for one to escape future events is to end ones life. It could be said that Othello ends two lives, as he and Desdemona truly are one; she reiterates this on her deathbed. Emilia, stumbling onto the murder scene, cries out O, who hath done this deed? to which Desdemona replies Nobody, I myself (5.2.134). One cannot read the nal scene of this play without noticing the number of times the word speak is used in its various forms. Emilia, particularly, in her

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plain-spoken voice, focuses on her ability to speak as enabling her to bear witness to the ofcers who arrive at the death scene. Though her husband orders her silence, she retorts, I will not charm my tongue. I am bound to speak (5.2.191). A few lines later she insists, I will speak as liberal as the north. / Let heaven, and men, and devils, let em all, / All, All cry shame against me, yet Ill speak (5.2.2268). Emilia uses words in a utilitarian fashion, to relay facts, not stories. In her earlier scene with Desdemona, we see her unvarnished thoughts continually being expressed via language. Unsophisticated as she is, Emilias words still create her future, however. When Iago commands her to return to their home, she sasses back, Perchance, Iago, I will neer go home (5.2.453). Shortly after these words are spoken, she is murdered by her husband. As she dies, Emilias words continue to associate speech with empowerment as she says, So come my soul to bliss as I speak true, / So, speaking as I think, alas, I die (5.2.257). Iago never gained control of Emilias narrative as he did Othellos. He can silence her by killing her, but her dying narrative is her own. Othello, however, remains disempowered. His narrative has been taken from him. When his uncle Lodovico arrives at the scene asking where Othello is being held, the Moor can only reply Thats he that was Othello. Here I am (5.2.290). Othello uses I to indicate his physical body, but this body is a mere representation of himself, for Othello no longer exists. When Lodovico asks, What shall be said to thee? Othello responds, Why, anything (5.2.299). Anything can be said, because Othello is past tense now. Though Othello does wish to know why Iago took over his lifes story, he is refused that satisfaction. Iago decides to cease narration altogether as he states, Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word (5.2.310). Indeed, from this point forward in the play Iago never speaks again.

NARRATIVE AND SUBVERSION Iagos refusal to speak further has twofold implications in terms of Derridas concept of iterability. The rst is that Iago removes himself at this point from any future historicizing as to his motives or potential meaning of his actions. He leaves the witnesses at the scene, as well as future audiences of this play, dumbfounded. What exactly, has he accomplished, and for what gain to himself? Since stories must be iterable for the future in order to be performative, it is imperative to understand the intention of the narrator, in this case, Iago. Yet his refusal to concretize any meaning with his dismissive What you know, you know, leaves us with what would seem to be an open door in terms of history, and this is the second implication of his muteness. For while Iago exercises his right to remain silent (likely to inict further agony upon his victim) this gives Othello the nal word for historical purposes, and herein lies the potential for a new story.

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Just before he kills himself, Othello is concerned with history, that is, how Othellos story will be told. He gives a soliloquy in two parts, beginning with I pray you, in your letters, / When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, / Speak of me as I am (5.2.349351). By using the I again, he refers to the Othello present before the witnesses at that moment; the empty, broken Othello. He uses the past tense to describe this Othello as one that loved not wisely but too well, perplexed in the extreme, who threw a pearl away and who drops tears (5.2.35359). The Othello he describes here is the postvictimized self whose narrative has been usurped from him. Yet Othello has one last story to tell. The second part of the soliloquy is a story from his past that mirrors his present state. The story is set in Aleppo, where a malignant and a turbaned Turk / Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, / I took by th throat the circumcised dog / And smote him thus (5.2.36265). Fatally stabbing himself at the end of this story, Othello leaves the witnesses with a dual comparison, for he is both the Turk who has disgraced the state and the vanquisher who delivers justice. His story is played out; he sacriced his much-loved wife to keep her from a future of whoredom. Yet because she died pure, he is a murderer and must face his own keen sense of justice. In his nal moments on earth, Othello is both the victim and hero. He is the outsider to Venetian culture who is also the insider. Always, he is aware of the power inherent in words, and this is demonstrated by his concern about how his story will be told; namely, iterated and re-iterated, throughout history. I suggest that Othello recognizes, even in the midst of his linguistic breakdown, that stories, iterated and re-iterated throughout history, eventually might offer an escape from the colonizing paradigms which led to his personal tragedy. He begs the authors of letters about him to give him a voice in his own history, and the act of writing then produces additional possibilities. As noted by Derrida: 1. A written sign, in the current meaning of this word, is a mark that subsists, one which does not exhaust itself in the moment of its inscription and which can give rise to an iteration in the absence and beyond the presence of the empirically determined subject who, in a given context, has emitted or produced it. This is what has enabled us, at least traditionally, to distinguish a written from and oral communication. 2. At the same time, a written sign carries with it a force that breaks with its context, that is, with the collectivity of presences organizing the moment of its inscription. (9) That Othello becomes so concerned with written as opposed to oral storytelling might be another indicator of his assimilation into Venetian culture. Certainly writing would be a concern of Shakespeares, as author of the play. Yet Othello seems prescient specically in its concern for the possibilities of performative utterances to break out of their historical context and create future actualities. Through the process of iteration and re-iteration, narratives might transcend their predetermined contexts and original intent.3 While Austin views this as a dangerous

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aberation, deconstruction and post-colonial theorists view it as a revolutionary potential. The events within the play itself reinforce this paradox. By the end of Othello, Brabanzios philosophy that words are just words has certainly been disproved. Words are power; even Emilia recognized that. Yet words can never perfectly denote truth either. Just as visual evidence like the handkerchief can be appropriated, so too can ones life story. As the play concludes, the audience is left debating their attitudes toward marriage, honesty, jealousy, and justice. Meanwhile, Othellos nal question refrains throughout history: Who can control his fate? (5.2.272). Any persons narrative might turn tragic, as the words of this storyteller remind us. Yet perhaps if there is hope it is to be found in history; for as Graziano states at the end of the play All that is spoke is marred (5.2.368). The subversive properties of language at once contain its greatest failure as well as its greatest possibility. Monica Beckner Robison is a Ph.D. student and instructor in the writing program at Ball State University. WORKS CITED
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Ed. J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962. Bartels, Emily C. Othello and Africa: Postcolonialism Reconsidered. The William and Mary Quarterly 54.1 (1997): 4564. Bhabha, Homi. Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse. Discipleship: A Special Issue on Psychoanalysis 28 (1984): 12533. Calderwood, James L. Speech and Self in Othello. Shakespeare Quarterly 38.3 (1987): 293303. Derrida, Jacques. Signature Event Context. Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988. Genster, Julia. Lieutenancy, Standing in, and Othello. ELH 57.4 (1990): 785809. Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. 124. Print. Grennan, Eamon. The Womens Voices in Othello: Speech, Song, Silence. Shakespeare Quarterly 38.3 (1987): 27592. Hopkins, Lisa. The Representation of Narrative; What Happens in Othello. The University of Mississippi Studies in English 1.2 (1997): 160174. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. University of Minnesota. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Miller, J. Hillis. Performativity as Performance/Performativity as Speech Act: Derridas Special Theory of Performativity. South Atlantic Quarterly 106.2 (2007): 219235. Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 2008. 385457.

NOTES
1. See Bartels 4564 for additional historical context. 2. See Miller 225233 for an engaging discussion of Austin, Derrida, Butler, and performativity. 3. See Bhabha 125133 for a discussion of mimicry.

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