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Bianca and Cassio's Relationship in <Em>Othello</Em>

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Bianca and Cassio's Relationship in <Em>Othello</Em> Marquette University From the SelectedWorks of Sarah E. Thompson 2012 "I Am No Strumpet": Bianca and Cassio's Relationship in <em>Othello</em> Sarah E. Thompson, Marquette University Available at: https://works.bepress.com/sarah_thompson/1/ 1 Sarah Thompson English 6220 December 12, 2012 “I Am No Strumpet”: Bianca and Cassio’s Relationship in Othello Throughout the critical history of Shakespeare’s Othello, audiences and critics alike have identified love and sexuality as major themes of the play. Indeed, there are many who would argue that the play as a whole is an examination of heterosexual relationships, with all the concerns, such as sexual anxieties, gender inequalities, and emotional struggles that accompany this subject. Discussions of Othello’s portrayal of the relationships between men and women integrate any number of other facets of literary study, such as the psychological factors that shape the relationships of Othello and Desdemona or Iago and Emilia, or the cultural expectations for gender and marriage during the Renaissance, and how these expectations are both upheld and critiqued in Othello, or how the genre elements of sex, or love, tragedies influence the play’s action and the audience’s expectations for the play. Many critics who examine the married relationships focus on the feminine roles that Desdemona and Emilia fill or challenge, while others study the masculine perspectives of these relationships, and seek to explore what prompts Iago’s seeming “hatred of his wife and all women,”1 or Othello’s obsession with Desdemona’s sexuality, and his self-doubts, frequently linked to his age and racial status, about his ability to satisfy her in their relationship. Despite the fairly comprehensive nature of this field of study on the issues of love, sexuality, and gender 1 Evelyn Gajowski, The Art of Loving: Female Subjectivity and Male Discursive Traditions in Shakespeare's Tragedies (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992), 61. 2 relationships in Othello, however, there is one aspect of the play that is overlooked with surprising regularity. The sexual relationship between Bianca and Cassio, one of only three such relationships in Othello, is rarely acknowledged in these discussions of love, sex, and gender, and if acknowledged, often not examined in any depth. However, Bianca and Cassio’s relationship is essential to any examination of these interconnected themes, as their relationship not only demonstrates certain similarities to the relationships of Othello and Desdemona and Iago and Emilia, but the Cassio-Bianca relationship also presents an alternative model for sexual relationships, one not based on marriage.2 To a certain extent, the entire purpose of Bianca as a visible character in Othello is to create a third onstage couple. Strictly in terms of the plot, Bianca is non-essential. The most 2 For works that broadly explore the love or sex tragedy elements in Othello, see Jill Line, Shakespeare and the Fire of Love (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 2004); Marianne Novy, Love's Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); H A. Mason, Shakespeare's Tragedies of Love: An Examination of the Possibility of Common Readings of Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear & Anthony and Cleopatra (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970); and Derick R. C. Marsh, Passion Lends Them Power: A Study of Shakespeare's Love Tragedies. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976). For works discussing Renaissance cultural influences that affect this portrayal of love and marriage in Othello, see Mary B. Rose, The Expense of Spirit: Love and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Margo Hendricks, “‘The Moor of Venice,’ or the Italian on the Renaissance English Stage” in Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender ed. by Shirley N. Garner and Madelon Sprengnether (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 193-209; and Sara Munson Deats, “‘Truly, an obedient lady’: Desdemona, Emilia, and the Doctrine of Obedience in Othello” in Othello: New Critical Essays ed. Philip C. Kolin (New York: Routledge, 2002), 233-254. For works that specifically examine Desdemona’s role as a wife, see Lena Corwen Orlin, “Desdemona’s Disposition” in Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender ed. by Shirley N. Garner and Madelon Sprengnether (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 171-192; Unhae Langis, “Marriage, the Violent Traverse from Two to One in The Taming Of The Shrew and Othello,” Journal Of The Wooden O Symposium 8 (2008): 45-63; Deats (see above); Rose (above); David Bevington, “Othello: Portrait of a Marriage” in Othello: New Critical Essays ed. Philip C. Kolin (New York: Routledge, 2002), 221-232; and Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). For a psychological examination of Desdemona’s and Othello’s relationship, see Arthur C. Kirsch, Shakespeare and the Experience of Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). For works that examine gender roles in Othello, often with a pronounced feminist perspective, see Evelyn Gajowski, The Art of Loving: Female Subjectivity and Male Discursive Traditions in Shakespeare's Tragedies (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992) and Carol Thomas Neely, “Women and Men in Othello,” in Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello, ed. Anthony G. Barthelemy (New York: G.K. Hall, 1994), 68-90. For works that mention, however briefly, Bianca’s role in Othello, see Bevington, 228; Gajowski, 79-80; and Neely, 73-74, 78, 81. A brief discussion of Cassio and his attitude towards Bianca is found in Orlin, 179; while two other, deeply negative, assessments of Cassio’s character are in Kirsch, 16, 36; and Neely, 71, 72, 74, 79. A positive assessment of Cassio, but one that largely ignores the role of Bianca, is found in Eileen Z. Cohen, “Mirror Of Virtue: The Role Of Cassio In Othello,” English Studies 57.2 (1976): 115-127, with a discussion of Bianca’s role especially in 124-125. 3 important event associated with Bianca, Cassio and Iago’s laughing conversation about her affections for Cassio, which the spying Othello takes as evidence of Cassio’s relationship with his wife, occurs while Bianca is not onstage, and does not require Bianca’s presence elsewhere in the play to be effective. The other purpose that Bianca fulfills in the plot, which occurs later this same scene, is her return of Desdemona’s handkerchief to Cassio, which increases the hidden Othello’s rage at Cassio and Desdemona. But in terms of the plot’s logic, for Othello to see that Cassio has possession of Desdemona’s handkerchief, it would be far more straightforward for Cassio to simply show the handkerchief to Iago during the course of their conversation, referencing how he “found it in [his] chamber” but does not know to whom it belongs (3.4.188). Instead, the incorporation of Bianca in this scene creates a somewhat convoluted and frankly odd scenario, in which Cassio has an inexplicable desire to have this mysterious handkerchief copied and so asks his jealous lover, Bianca, to do this for him, but she, after taking the handkerchief away to do this work, suddenly reappears to angrily return this item to Cassio, arriving at precisely the right moment for Othello to suspect the worst. Bianca’s purpose in Othello, then, lies not in what she contributes to the primary plot of the play, but rather in what she contributes to the themes of the play, specifically those of female sexuality and romantic relationships. Bianca’s onstage presence with Cassio offers the audience a third visible heterosexual relationship; they form a couple that, unlike Othello and Desdemona or Iago and Emilia, is not tied by the formal bonds of matrimony, but is recognizably a couple nonetheless. The play emphasizes the fact that the nature of their relationship is that of a couple, rather than merely repeated sexual transactions between a man and a “strumpet,” often through the exposure of fundamental similarities between the Cassio-Bianca relationship and those of Othello and Desdemona and Iago and Emilia (5.1.78). Cassio and Bianca each share basic 4 similarities with the men and women of the other pairs. Cassio is, or was, prior being cashiered, a fellow soldier with Othello and Iago, and Bianca is associated with the same sort of feminine domestic activities as Desdemona and Emilia. Despite her role as a “courtesan,” as she is termed in the play’s list of characters, onstage, Bianca is not significantly more overt in her sexuality than the other women, and her topics of conversation and the tasks with which she passes her time are similarly domestic, centering often on Bianca’s project of copying the embroidery of the handkerchief, or her invitations for Cassio to dine at her house. Desdemona, too, is often associated with her domestic tasks, having to attend to “the house affairs” even during the days of Othello’s courtship, planning her schedules around dining arrangements, and specifically being praised by Othello for the fact that she is “So delicate with her needle!” (1.3.147, 4.1.187- 188).3 The Cassio-Bianca couple additionally shares with the other two couples the increase of tensions in their relationship due to suspicions associated with Desdemona’s handkerchief. Cassio and Bianca are also comparable to the play’s other couples in terms of the number of scenes of private interaction that they have. Although Bianca has a far smaller role in the play as a whole than Emilia or Desdemona, she and Cassio have three scenes together: one private scene in 3.4.169-201, one semi-public scene in 4.1.146-161, in which Iago and a hidden Othello are present, and one fairly public scene in 5.1.73-104. Emilia and Iago, in contrast, have significantly more semi-public (meaning one or two others are present) and public scenes, having three of each scene type, but, like Bianca and Cassio, they have only one brief private scene, in 3.3.300-320, in which Emilia gives Iago the handkerchief.
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