Summary: Act III, scene iv
Desdemona orders the clown to find Cassio and bring him
the message that she has made her suit to Othello. As the clown
departs, Desdemona wonders to Emilia where her handkerchief might
be. Othello enters and tells Desdemona to give him her hand. She
does so, and he chastises her for her hand’s moistness, which suggests sexual
promiscuity. He then asks her to lend him her handkerchief. When
Desdemona cannot produce the handkerchief he wants to see, Othello
explains the handkerchief’s history. An Egyptian sorceress gave
it to his mother and told her that it would make her desirable and
keep Othello’s father loyal, but if she lost it or gave it away,
Othello’s father would leave her. Othello’s mother gave him the
magic handkerchief on her deathbed, instructing him to give it to the
woman he desired to marry. Desdemona is unsettled by the story and
says that she has the handkerchief, but not with her. Othello does
not believe her. As he accuses her, demanding “The handkerchief!”
with increasing vehemence, she entreats for Cassio as a way of changing
the subject.
After Othello storms off, Emilia laments the fickleness
of men. Cassio and Iago enter, and Cassio immediately continues
with his suit to Desdemona for help. Desdemona tells Cassio that
his timing is unfortunate, as Othello is in a bad humor, and Iago
promises to go soothe his master. Emilia speculates that Othello
is jealous, but Desdemona maintains her conviction that Othello
is upset by some political matter. She tells Cassio to wait while
she goes to find Othello and bring him to talk with his former lieutenant.
While Cassio waits, Bianca, a prostitute, enters. She
reprimands him for not visiting her more frequently, and he apologizes,
saying that he is under stress. He asks her to copy the embroidery
of a handkerchief he recently found in his room onto another handkerchief. Bianca
accuses him of making her copy the embroidery of a love gift from
some other woman, but Cassio tells her she is being silly. They make
a plan to meet later that evening.
Read a translation of
Act III, scene iv →
Analysis
In this scene, the time scheme of the play begins to unravel.
When Bianca talks to Cassio, she says, “What, keep a week away,”
suggesting that Cassio has been on the island for at least a week (III.iv.168).
But the play has only represented three days thus far: the first
day in Venice, the day of the arrival and revels in Cyprus, and
the day that begins at the beginning of Act III and continues until
the end of the play. Critics and editors have named this problem
the “double time scheme”: two separate time frames operate simultaneously.
This inconsistency is somewhat disorienting—like Othello, the audience
feels stuck in a chaotic world. The events onstage are not only
beyond our control, they defy logical understanding. For instance,
it is difficult to understand how Desdemona could have had time
to commit adultery.
From the moment it is introduced into the plot, the handkerchief given
to Desdemona by Othello becomes the play’s most important symbol.
As a charmed gift given to Othello by his mother, the handkerchief
represents Othello’s mysterious and exotic heritage, a heritage
that he has repudiated as a Christian and Venetian citizen. More
immediately, to Othello the handkerchief represents Desdemona’s
chastity, and her giving it away is a sign that she has given her
body away. In Act III, scene iii, Iago mentions that the handkerchief’s
much-discussed embroidery is a design of strawberries. The image
of strawberries on a white background recalls the bloodstains on
a wedding sheet that prove a bride’s virginity; moreover, the dye used
to color the strawberry pattern actually consists of the preserved
blood of dead virgins. Thus, the handkerchief suggests
a number of different interpretations. By positioning the handkerchief
in Cassio’s lodging, Iago as good as convicts Desdemona of unfaithfulness.
And when, in the following scene, Bianca is found to be in possession
of the handkerchief, instructed to copy the embroidery, Desdemona
seems no better than a prostitute herself, carelessly allowing what
was once a symbol of Othello’s uniqueness to be passed around and
replicated. Othello has convinced himself that Desdemona has lost
her virtue because she has lost a symbol of that virtue.
Emilia, who betrays her privileged position as Desdemona’s attendant
by giving Iago the handkerchief, is an elusive character. Emilia
seems to become loyal to her husband in a way she hasn’t been in
the past: she decides to give Iago the handkerchief after having
denied his request “a hundred times,” and she lies to Desdemona about
not knowing the handkerchief’s whereabouts. Yet later, in Act IV,
scene ii, Emilia will attempt to convince Othello of Desdemona’s loyalty.
She seems deeply skeptical of and knowledgeable about men in general.
She immediately recognizes that Othello is jealous, despite Desdemona’s
protests, and her comment that jealousy “is a monster / Begot upon
itself, born on itself” (III.iv.156–157)
echoes Iago’s earlier remark that jealousy “is the green-eyed monster
which doth mock / The meat it feeds on” (III.iii.170–171).
Iago mentions at the beginning of the play that he suspects his
wife of unfaithfulness, and on one level Iago and Emilia seem to
work out their conflict vicariously through Othello and Desdemona.
But Emilia also comments that men “are all but stomachs, and we
are all but food. / They eat us hungrily, and when they are full,
/ They belch us” (III.iv.100–102).
This comment supports a reading of Othello’s jealousy as a way of
justifying his rejection of Desdemona.
