My Last Duchess and Othello, IV, iii

In the salient form, be it monologue, dialogue or full theatrical scene, the author usher out non step into the action to comment or sympathize for us, as he can in a novel. We must draw our own conclusions from what we see and hear, and this makes for stringy effects, as a character reveals him- or herself to us by what he or she says or does. In the monologue My Last Duchess Browning misleads us with great skill before we realize that we are earreach to a criminal lunatic.The dramatic force lies in the surprise we feel as the truth in the long run emerges. In Act IV, scene iii of Othello there is again an agonizing irony for the viewer, who knows more than Desdemona and is of get across impotent to help her. Shakespeare works like a dentist without an anaesthetic, and the pain for the audience derives from the unbearable whiteness of the doomed Desdemona, who is surely something like the Duchess in Brownings numbers, helpless and bewildered in the reckon of a murderous in sanity in her husband.Brownings Duke sounds so sane He is toppingly gracious and articulate Willt please you sit and look at her? (5). As he tells his story he seems to weigh his words with great caution, as if he is quite free of the distorting effect of anger or any other passion, and is keen to avoid any unfairness in his persuasion She had / A heart how shall I say? too soon made glad (21-2), but thanked / someways I know not how as if she ranked (31-2). He never raises his voice, and speaks with a measured pledge that quite takes us in.At first we might be tempted to believe that his attitudes are reasonable Sir, twas not / her husbands presence only, called that spot / Of joy into the Duchess cheek (13-15). His manner is restrained even as he hints at her infidelity. The painter flattered her about her appearance, as of course he would, being a renascence artist totally dependent on patronage, but she was charmed by it foolishly, the Duke suggests.She liked whateer / She looked on (23-24). She was delighted by the beauty of the sunset, and the little tribute from the man who gave her the cherries, just as much as My favour at her breast (25). What he seems to be objecting to is her failure to be properly selective and dingy in her tastes. This is a sort of extreme sort of snobbery, but perhaps not unprecedented we may not find it attractive, but we may accept it as a feature of a uplifted man with a nine-hundred-years-old name (33).All the time, Browning is luring us up the garden path. We begin to ascertain the problem. The Duke is immensely proud, a man of great heritage, while she is free of snobbery, charmed by the delights of the world and military man kindness, and genuinely innocuous. (Infidelity does not now seem to be the Dukes concern.) Then we begin to see how his self-conceit is really pathological arrogance.Even had you skill / In speech (which I have not) (35-36), (he lies, of course) to explain your expostulation to he r behavior which is clearly quite common it would involve stooping, and I choose / Never to stoop (42-3). So, sort of than speak to her about his dissatisfaction, which would involve impossible condescension by him, he chose to solve the problem rather more radically This grew I gave commands / Then all smiles stopped together (45-6).It takes a moment for us to register what he did, so unbelievable is it and so evasively phrased. Then, having confessed to murder, or, rather, boasted of it, he continues his negotiations for his next Duchess, celebrating, incidentally, one of his deary art works, Neptune Taming a sea-horse (54-5), the very image of the brutal control that he has himself exerted over his innocent decision Duchess.The willow scene from Othello works differently, of course, because it is a dialogue, though it is the inner workings of Desdemonas mind that the dramatic form reveals here, just as much as is the case in Brownings poem There is an almost intolerable pat hos about this scene because Desdemona is so helpless. She has a good brain of what is going to happen If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me / In one of those homogeneous sheets (24-5) and is impotent in the face of her fate.There seems to be no defence against the ruthless execution of Othellos enraged will. She is in a sort of trance, a hypnosis of shock. All she can do is wait for the end, and the scurvy simplicity of her reflections here is the sign of a wounded spirit in retreat from reality. The tragic gloriole is given additional poignancy by the occasional interruption of the everyday details of undressing for bed, the general continuing because there is nothing else to do in the face of the worst Prithee unpin me (21).She continues at moments to simulate that this is just an ordinary night This Lodovico is a proper man (35), not a comparison of Othello with her land forms, but a pathetic attempt at gossip. But her real thoughts emerge in the infantile fixation with the willow song, which she cannot resist. It is the perfect mirror of her own fortune And she died singing it that song tonight / Will not go from my mind (30-1). Like a detail from a psychoanalysts casebook comes the self-generated line in the song that gives away the deepest thoughts of the willing victim.Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve, Nay, thats not next. Hark Whos that knocks?It is the wind. (51-3)She corrects herself, but the absolute terror of realisation goes through her.The talkative innocence of Desdemona is highlighted by her conversation with genus Emilia. While Desdemona genuinely believes that no woman could in fact frame adultery for all the world (63), and swears that she herself would not do it by this heavenly light (64), Emilia responds, Nor I neither, by this heavenly light, / I might do it as well in the dark (65-6), and goes on to consider just what all the world might mean as a reward for the sin.Emilia is not immoral. It is just that Desde mona is on a superhuman and heroic level of behavior, and Emilia is on the normal level. Compared with Desdemonas helplessness in the face of the corruption of Othello, Emilias jokes have an immensely sanative health. It is not a criticism of Desdemona, but it is a firm placing of trust in the human by Shakespeare.We can imagine that what Desdemona feels and says is very close to the response of Brownings Duchess. Both of them are innocent and benevolent women faced by deranged men. The creation of character and the realization of human dilemma in the dramatic form are forceful and, in these two cases, immensely painful for the audience or reader. The form makes the reader peculiarly impotent in the face of disaster. We would like to stand up in the theatre and shout at the stage, like the lady in the famous story, You great black fool, cant you see shes innocent?