the individualization of shakespeare's characters through imagery

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SHAKESPEARE SURVEY the assistance a study of imagery can be in revealing the temperament and nature of the character who uses this imagery. This is a very interesting theme, she says, and is worth investigating. To prove her point she cites Falstaff's imagery in the two parts of Henry IV as offering clear indication of the change which takes place in the stout knight.5 Spurgeon touched on this rich theme only briefly and in passing. As we have already said, most Shakespeare studies do not deal with this theme at all, while many of them deny or minimize the distinct individuality of the style of speech used by each of Shakespeare's characters. About twenty years ago, thanks to the studies of Dover Wilson and Granville-Barker, 6 it was the fashion among English students of Shakespeare to regard Shakespeare chiefly as a dramatist. Of recent years, however, Shakespeare is coming more and more to be regarded chiefly as a 'dramatic poet'. The realism of Shakespeare's characters, their specific psychological traits, and hence distinctive styles of speech, are often being thrown into obscurity. 7 We are obliged to erect the edifice of our investigation on an unexplored site. If, as a result of our investigation, we should find definite laws governing the imagery of the individual characters we shall thereby, first, again confirm the fact that Shakespeare's characters do not speak for the author but, so to say, 'for themselves', i.e. are independent individuals (in other words we shall obtain new confirmation of Shakespeare's realism); secondly, we shall record one of the means by which Shakespeare (probably subconsciously) individualized the speech of his characters; and, finally, the particular figures of speech predominating in the role of any given character will provide us with a valuable key to that character's psychological make-up. 1. OTHELLO OTHELLO The images to be found in Othello's speeches fall into two sharply contrasting groups. First— and chiefly—there is what may be called lofty and poetic imagery. Instead of saying "for the greatest fortune" Othello says "for the sea's worth" (i, ii, 28). He says that Desdemona "was false as water" (v, ii, 132). Instead of "always be suspecting" Othello says "to follow still the changes of the moon with fresh suspicions" (m, iii, 178). It is a noteworthy fact that the image of the moon occurs four more times in Othello's speeches: instead of *' nine months'' he has'' nine moons'' (1, iii, 84); " the moon winks'' (iv, ii, 76) to hide Desdemona's supposed adultery from its eyes; after murdering Desdemona Othello compares the catastrophe to "a huge eclipse of sun and moon" (v, ii, 99) and states that the moon "makes men mad" (v, ii, 107). In this repetition of the word 'moon' we divine something peculiar to the man, something of Oriental origin, the 'atmosphere' Pushkin felt: Why does young Desdemona Love her Moor As the moon loves the dark of night This first impression is confirmed by others of Othello's florid and grandiose figures of speech. He does not say that the sybil who sewed the handkerchief he presented to Desdemona was two hundred years old, but that she "had number'd in the world the sun to course two hundred 84 Shakespeare Survey Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007
INDIVIDUALIZATION OF SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS compasses" (m, iv, 72). He invokes the "chaste stars" (v, ii, 2). To kill Desdemona means "to put out the light" (v, ii, 7). The lamp he holds in his hand is a "flaming minister" (v, ii, 8). To kill Desdemona is to pluck the rose (v, ii, 13), to kiss her as she sleeps is to smell the rose on the tree (v, ii, 18). Had Desdemona been true to him he would not have sold her for a world made "of one entire and perfect chrysolite" (v, ii, 143). Desdemona's skin is whiter "than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster" (v, ii, 4). Instead of saying that he is a man already advanced in years, Othello says that he is "declined into the vale of years" (m, iii, 266). He compares Desdemona to a hawk (m, iii, 265) and to the fountain from which his current runs (iv, ii, 58). Instead of simply vowing "by heaven", he says much more picturesquely "by yond marble heaven", with marble probably used as a synonym for enduring, constant, inviolable. He calls patience a "young and rose-lipt cherubin" (iv, ii, 62). Learning, after her death, that Desdemona was innocent, Othello weeps tears of joy and compares his tears with the "medicinable gum" of "the Arabian trees" (v, ii, 349). After Desdemona's death he compares himself with "the base Indian", who "threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe" (v, ii, 346). Contemplating death he speaks of the "very sea-mark of my utmost sail" (v, ii, 267). The following images, too, it seems, should be classed as poetic. Othello compares his heart to a stone: he strikes his breast and it hurts his hand (rv, i, 181). The image of a heart turned to stone recurs in Othello's speeches: "thou dost stone my heart", he tells Desdemona (v, ii, 63). Othello tells the Senators that custom "hath made the flinty and steel couch of war my thrice-driven bed of down" (1, iii, 231). Thus, lofty and poetic images are abundant in Othello's speech. The epithet poetic is particularly appropriate to them. Some of them are full of Oriental atmosphere: the moon, the " two hundred compasses" of the sun, the fragrance of roses, a world of chrysolite, skin as white as alabaster. The gum of Arabian trees and the Indian with his pearl are frankly exotic. Investigators who refuse to admit exotic colour in Othello's role are therefore in the wrong. The numerous classical images he uses are also of the lofty and poetic type. He speaks, for instance, of the "light-wing'd toys of feather'd Cupid" (1, iii, 268). Waves are "hills of seas Olympus-high" (n, i, 191). Thunder is "th' Immortal Jove's dread clamours" (m, iii, 356). Desdemona's name was, according to Othello, "as fresh as Dian's visage" (in, iii, 388). He compares his feelings with the Pontic (Black) sea which flows ever forward (m, iii, 453). He calls life "Promethean heat" (v, ii, 12). The image of chaos in the famous phrase "when I love thee not, Chaos is come again" (m, iii, 92) is also to be regarded as classical. Finally, the image of a personified justice evoked by the words: "O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword" (v, ii, 16), may also be included here. Justice is allegorically pictured as a feminine figure carrying a sword. Lofty, poetic and solemn imagery is so abundant and so essential in Othello's role that we are quite justified in calling it the dominant theme in his world of images. However, it is not the only theme. In sharp contrast to it there is another theme represented by a whole group of images which may be called low. Othello calls a suspicious, jealous man a 'goat' (ni, iii, 180). "Goats and monkeys!" he exclaims in a fit of jealousy (iv, i, 264). 8 He says he "had rather be a toad, and live upon the vapour of a dungeon" than be cuckolded (m, iii, 270). He compares Desdemona to "a cistern for foul toads to knot and gender in" (iv, ii, 60). He commands his bosom to swell with its "fraught, for 'tis of aspics' tongues" (m, iii, 451). Desdemona's singing, he says, is capable of 85 Shakespeare Survey Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007
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the individualization of shakespeare's characters through imagery

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