Othello (Vol. 68) | Arthur M. Eastman (essay date 1972)
Arthur M. Eastman (essay date 1972)
SOURCE: Eastman, Arthur M. “Othello as Ironist.” In In Honor of Austin Wright, edited by Joseph Baim, Ann L. Hayes, and Robert J. Gangewere, pp. 18-29. Carnegie Series in English, no. 12. Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University, 1972.
[In the following essay, Eastman investigates the similarities between the characters of Othello and Iago, maintaining that since both approach the world as ironists, Iago's efforts to corrupt Othello are successful.]
When we think about it, it is scarcely less extraordinary that Othello should submit himself to Iago's tutelage, turn his love into hate, and destroy Desdemona, then himself, than that he and Desdemona should have transcended the barriers of race and age and culture in the first place and boldly entered into their ecstatically intuitive union. Iago is diabolically skillful, of course, and the marriage was quick, denying in its brevity of courtship...
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