In Shakespeare’s Othello, perhaps the most unwatchable/watchable play there is, Othello murders his wife Desdemona believing as he does that she has cheated on him with Casio. It’s an awful business; for one thing, she’s entirely innocent. How does it come about that noble Othello’s moral vision is so entirely clouded that he commits this heinous act?
Well, he needed some help in breaking that terrible taboo. The help comes from Iago who subtly poisons Othello’s mind. Two questions emerge: How does Iago do it and why? Let’s start with the second question first.
Why does Iago destroy Othello (and Desdemona too, let’s not forget)?
This question has puzzled scholars through the ages. Iago has been passed over for promotion: is that the motive? Iago is a racist and Othello is a dark Moor? Is that it? Perhaps Iago is unconsciously attracted to Desdemona? Alternatively, there is a rumour that Othello slept with Iago’s wife, Emelia (at least Iago claims there is such a rumour):
I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets
He’s done my office. I know not if’t be true
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind
Will do as if for surety.
(I.3.380-84)
In other words, any excuse will do. Iago intends to destroy Othello – reasons can come later. Now who behaves like this if not the psychopath? They say that the dingo – an Australian wild dog – must kill every day, whether it is hungry or not. The psychopath must destroy – reasons are superfluous when there is the drive to do evil (title of Liane Leedom’s forthcoming book).
How does Iago destroy Othello’s moral mind?
He does this first through a campaign of misleading and then by a perfect paramoralism.
The campaign
Iago works on Othello to make him suspicious of Desdemona and Cassio. Desdemona drops a handkerchief that was Othello’s first gift to her, and Emilia obtains this for Iago, who has asked her to steal it, having decided to plant it in Cassio’s lodgings as evidence of Cassio and Desdemona’s affair. Emilia is unaware of what Iago plans to do with the handkerchief. After he has planted the handkerchief, Iago tells Othello to hide, and goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with his mistress Bianca, but since Bianca’s name is not mentioned Othello thinks that Cassio refers to Desdemona.
The paramoralism
A paramoralism is a statement which, under the guise of moral speech, serves to undemine the moral thinking of the other person. Iago’s is a single, perfect word: ‘Lie–‘.
OTHELLO
Hath he said any thing?IAGO
He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
No more than he’ll unswear.OTHELLO
What hath he said?IAGO
‘Faith, that he did–I know not what he did.OTHELLO
What? what?IAGO
Lie–
It is the merest suggestion – Othello’s mind does the rest.
OTHELLO
With her?IAGO
With her, on her; what you will.OTHELLO
Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when
they belie her. Lie with her! that’s fulsome.
–Handkerchief–confessions–handkerchief!–To
confess, and be hanged for his labour;–first, to be
hanged, and then to confess.–I tremble at it.
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
passion without some instruction. It is not words
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
–Is’t possible?–Confess–handkerchief!–O devil!–Falls in a trance
Passive aggression is still aggression
Readers have written movingly and bravely about some of the gross, overt abuse and neglect of psychopaths. Do you have an account of this kind of more subtle, roundabout means by which the psychopath gets another to do his destructive bidding?
Hi Dr. Steve,
I always had a hard time with Shakespeare but I might have a general example.
After about 1/2 a year with the Bad Man, I recognized that he likely told people things about me very selectively and out of context so that he could get a reaction out of them that he wanted. Then, he could come back and tell me “my friends say X about you. They can’t believe you would do X.”
A real example was some kind of crisis happened to him at work and he told people that I “left a good man in his darkest hour” and that his “crew” couldn’t believe I didn’t stand by him. Perhaps they did say that, I will never know. But if they did, I suspect he forgot to mention that when I did rush to his side and ask what happened and what could I do and is everything okay? His answer was, “You don’t even know. You didn’t ask the right questions. X knows. She is a better woman than you.” This was accompanied by drunkeness and covering his head with a pillow like he was 5 years old. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. It was also the first time I saw him drunk. I had no idea what was going on. He was acting so distraught and so bizarre that I thought maybe one of his children had died. It turned out that there was just a minor boat accident at work. It was ridiculous.
He also nearly swayed a friend against me once after just a brief conversation. He convinced my friend for about 5 minutes that maybe I was a dishonest “cheesy” girl. Luckily, my friend snapped out of it and ultimately, he was the person that helped me to escape the situation in the end.
Does this answer your question? I will admit I had a hard time understanding the Shakespeare dialog. Anyone else?
Oh Lordy, I think this is one of my husband’s specialties. He is so good at manipulating others to do his bidding and they don’t even know what’s happening.
A for instance is (and I hope I can succintly tell the story), middle of December I unexpectedly dropped by the house he was–and still is–staying. Now, mind you, at the time, he was saying he wanted to come home, he was not going to have relationships with other women while we were separated.
Anyway, I got to the house and there was a large Christmas decal, said “Happy Holidays” attached to his bedroom window by a little clear plastic suction cup. The decoration was facing the inside of his bedroom, for him to read, not to the outside, the way you’d usually attach such a thing.
I knew he’d been seeing a woman from AA at the time, so when he came outside I asked if this woman gave him the decal. He said, no, that his roommate “B” bought it for him. In fact he told me that B put it up on his bedroom window.
I knew he was lying. I said guys don’t buy shit like that. Plus I knew his roommate was hard up for money. I said unless he’s gay, which he’s not, there is no way he would have bought this.
Husband was adament–as always. What a liar.
Later that day, his roommate called me and told me he did buy the decal, that he picked it up for 99cents.
I have no doubt he was lying, lying to cover for my husband. Husband is so convincing, making himself look like the victim, probably told B that he bought the decal himself and I’m giving him such a hard time, and B just picked the ball up and ran without having to be directly asked.
One of my daughters pointed this out to me. She said my husband doesn’t even have to ask people to lie. He tells them his sob story and they offer to do it for him; they think they’re doing a good deed for this poor hapless innocent fellow.
In the 19 years I’ve known my husband he has never ever bought so much as a single Christmas decoration and I’m sure B never has either.
And then, two days later I dropped by again and this time the decal was facing the outside. That was interesting. Why would he have done that if he was so innocent?
Two days after that, it was gone altogether (which I realized by detective work that he had had a different woman over; so of course he would have to get rid of the decal. No other woman is going to believe he or B bought it either, give me a break ).
There are so many other examples of similar machinations, I could go on for hours.
He is having an endoscopy soon (today in fact) and he said he wanted me to take him so I could ask him any question I wanted while he was under effects of anesthesia, it would be like truth serum and he couldn’t lie even if he wanted to (geez, don’t you think they’d give this stuff to criminal defendants if this were the case).
Anyway, I told him I don’t need to ask him anything under any kind of truth serum because I already know the truth, and i was pissed at the implication that he is an innocent man wrongly accused.
A few days later he called my 32 year old son and left a message that his mom (me) obviously wasn’t really interested in knowing the truth).
Then he called me to apologize for having done so because obviously, he said, my son would naturally take my side.
He is a f%^$&ng manipulator, it’s unbelievable.
He’s done similar things with my friends, all under the guise of being sincere and concerned about me.
Aargh!!!!!!!!
Of course a lot of people would believe him because he sounds so concerned and plays the act of devoted husband so well and he has that warm voice and deep brown eyes, why he is almost a super-hero. He’s a nurse and a ski patroller and a used-to-be firefighter and he shows everyone pictures of his family and he used to call me 5 times a day (which now I realize accomplished two things: fooled them and fooled me), and he’s doing all these things and saying all these things that make it look like he really wants to come home when it is all a manipulation solely for the purpose of making it LOOK like he wants to come home so he can carry on with his original scheme of leaving me for another woman and no one knowing the truth.
And then of course if I try to explain all this to anyone other than those who are family or very close friends, I end up sounding like the crazy one.
They have no idea what these people are like, they have no idea that these monsters can appear so angelic. No matter what I say, they’ll say things like, well, if he didn’t tell you that your brakes were completely shot, he probably just forgot or he probably figured you’d realize on your own. Or they’ll say they still believe that he really loves me and wants to come home. They’ll even say they think I must still want him!!!!!!
The husband of a dear friend thinks this way, my friend told me last night, and I told her it is just so frustrating to not have people believe me. No matter the mountain of evidence, they want to automatically opt for the innocent explanation because, like most normal people, they can’t imagine anyone being so devious.
They apply their own way of thinking to others, and assume others think the same way.
And I do understand that, because even having lived with this man for so many years and having finally discovered the truth, even seeing with eyes fully open for the first time, seeing how over the phone he can tell me he adores me all the while he is looking at his girlfriend sitting in her parked car down the street, even despite all this I still cannot completely get my head around the way he is.
I will never completely “get” it. I just can’t. I’m unable to understand how anyone can be so indifferent to another person’s pain.
the dialogue was difficult for me too.
i have had someone threaten me with telling lies to destroy my reputation and make people think badly of me or to get them to side with him against me. it happened many times because it was my father. once someone pointed out to me that his lies were so absurd no one with any sense would believe them anyway.
definitely if he had done something wrong he would do this to turn the tables on me so he wouldn’t get in trouble. it is amazing that people took his side against mine. i also think that they pick stupider/spineless types to try this maneuver on. otherwise it wouldn’t work.
alohatraveller – Thanks – these are a classic examples of passive aggressive manipulation: “People are saying X about you [I was the one who told them about it in the first place!]”. Or “She didn’t stand by me [I refused her offers of help]”.
Gillian -The detail of the decal facing inwards is wonderful – it’s like sending oneself a Christma s card.
He was a master at Iagoisms. A master. And he’d be proud to tell you so, too. I’ve been debating about posting anything since I read this earlier today. It’s still very painful in many ways. I actually took part in his Iagoisms, much to my own chagrin. Just when I think I’m over the whole thing, something swings around and knocks me out. That’s been happening all week.
After I found that he was involved with someone other than me, I told him we were through and wished him well. That simply would not do! He still adored me! I’d done soooo much for him, after all. I was special beyond belief! In truth, my specialness had more to do with my credit limit than the things that are actually special about me, but I wanted to believe him when he said he needed me in his life, that he wanted us to remain friends forever because after all, he was still separated from his current wife and it was too soon to commit to anything, so he NEEDED to date around (and sleep around) to be sure I was The Right One. So what did he do? He proceeded to develop relationships with other girls and put them in touch with me, his Very Best Friend. Oh, I was certainly the willing victim. He actually let me warn them that the competition for his attention was fierce and that they’d have to do everything he said when he said it if they expected to even have a remote shot at him. Then he’d get angry with me for hurting his dates and frightening them because I was ruining his life! He was using me to gain further power over his considerable harem while I thought I was actually warning them. Of course, I was to be punished and screamed at for telling girls that he would control their entire lives, even though he was the one GIVING THEM MY CELL PHONE NUMBER. And I played along for months, deliberately blinding myself to the actual circumstances, believing that he just might come back to me because I was His Special Girl. I shudder to think of my own behavior and the ways in which I was a very willing victim AND perpetrator at the same time. I’m not a terribly religious person in my adulthood, but I hope that if there is some sort of God and final judgment, that there will be mercy for my soul.
gillian – “They want to automatically opt for the innocent explanation because, like most normal people, they can’t imagine anyone being so devious.” Very true – they’re fortunate not to have had their worldview challenged and why would they voluntarily change it now? Understandable, but frustrtating from your side.
“I will never completely ‘get’ it. I just can’t.” There’s something about the human mind which doesn’t like an unsolved puzzle – so it keeps worrying away at it. The trick with the puzzle of the psychopath is to get away from it so as to stop tormenting oneself with trying to understand.
gennyrabbit -“His lies were so absurd no one with any sense would believe them anyway.” Fortunately most psychopaths aren’t as intelligent or as hardworking as Iago!
Dr. Steve,
I love what you said about getting away from the puzzle of trying to understand the Sociopath/Psychopath. Powerful. He did what he did because that is what they do. (Sounds like I am paraphrasing from a recent ML Gallagher post.)
Now, I look at who I am and why did I do that to myself.. or allowed that. Anytime we are trying to fix someone else, we are off track.
I just work on me now. If I see someone other than me that needs work… I feel TIRED. No can do!
That’s a good thing. I am happy with that. :o)
Aloha……….E.R.