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The Function of Brabantio in Othello Author(S): Aerol Arnold Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol George Washington University The Function of Brabantio in Othello Author(s): Aerol Arnold Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1957), pp. 51-56 Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2867518 . Accessed: 22/03/2013 07:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Folger Shakespeare Library and George Washington University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Shakespeare Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:56:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Function of Brabantio in Othello AEROL ARNOLD CHRACTE RIZATION", Northrop Frye wrote, "depends on function", and dramatic function "in its turn depends on the structure of the play: the character has certain things to do because the play has such and such a shape."' This judgment, I believe, ran be illustrated in the characterization of Bra- bantio. His function as the father of a daughter who elopes is to behave in a way that makes necessary Desdemona's and Othello's public declaration of their love. For developing such a father there was little help in Cinthio. All he says is that "although the parents of the lady strove, all they could to induce her to take another husband, she consented to marry the Moor."2 In dramatic tradition, however, there was a pattern of fathers whose daughters betrayed them. Marlowe is credited with establishing a stock plot "by introducing the rebellious daughter who steals from her usurious father. Shake- speare [in The Merchant of Venice] carries this one step further by making the rebellious daughter elope."3 Actually, the father who guards his gold and can- not control his daughter is as old as the miser Euclio in Plautus, who is the model for all later misers.' Shakespeare, therefore, had a traditional pattern for the deceived father, which he could call up and modify to suit his needs in Othello. My argument will not be that Brabantio must be considered a miser or usurer because there is a tradition of miserly and usurious fathers whose daugh- ters elope, often with suitors deemed unworthy by the fathers. Rather I shall attempt to show that by changing the Cinthio story to an elopement story and by inventing the father who feels robbed, Shakespeare, from the beginning of his play, motivates the important scene in the council-chamber (I.iii). I shall also argue that in Brabantio remnants of the miser-father of the elopement plays re- main, and that the differences between Brabantio and the stock miser-father result from the differences in their dramatic functions. The stress is on the dra- matic explanation of character as opposed to the "portrait gallery" approach so common in the nineteenth century, for I share Kenneth Burke's conviction that Shakespeareis making plays, not people. And as a dramatisthe must know that the illusion of a well-roundedcharacter is produced,not by piling on Northrop Frye, "Characterization in Shakespearean Comedy", Shakespeare Quaterly, IV (July, k953), 271. 2Variorum Edition of Othello, ed. Horace Howard Furness (Philadelphia, '914), p. 377. All quotations from Shakespeare's plays are from Shakespeare: Twenty Three Plays and Sonnets, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (New York, x938). 3John Edwin Bakeless, The TragicaU History of Chritopher Marlowe (Harvard University Press, 1942), 1, 372-373- 4Elmer E. Stoll, Shakespeare Studies (New York, 1927), p. i67. This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:56:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 52 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY traits of character. .. but by so building a character-recipein accordwith the demands of the action that every trait the characterdoes have is sali- ently expressedin action or through action. .. Let us now look at scene one of Othello. As part of his plot to poison Othello's delight in his new marriage by incensing Desdemona's kinsmen, Iago arouses her father by crying: Awakel what, ho, Brabantio!thieves! thieves! Look to your house, your daughter,and your bags! Thieves! thieves. (I. i- 78-8I) Iago's words recall Shylock's cries, as reported by Salanio: "My daughter!0 my ducats! 0 my daughter! Fled with a Christianl 0 my Christian ducats! Justice!the law! my ducats, and my daughter! A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats, Of double ducats,stol'n from me by my daughter! And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stol'n by my daughterl Justice!find the girl; She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats."(II. viii. 15-22) To which Salerio adds: Why, all the boys in Venice follow him Crying his stones, his daughter,and his ducats. (IX.viii. 22-24) Iago's cry also recalls Marlowe's Barabas,who pairs his love for his Abigail with his love for gold: "O my girl, / My gold, my fortune, my felicityl" (II. i. 47-48) and "O girl! 0 gold! 0 beauty! 0 my blissI" (II. i. 54) In both The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice much is made of this pairing. In Marlowe's play the scene between Lodowick and Barabasis con- structed on a play on "diamond." Lodowick wants Barabas to help him to a diamond and Barabas uses "diamond"to refer to Abigail, to whom he certainly will not help Lodowick (II. iii. 50-95). Marlowe may have been influenced in the writing of this scene by Plautus' Aulularia (V.3), in which Euclio thinks Lyconides is confessing to the theft of his gold when he is in fact confessing to the seduction of his daughter, so that the daughter and the gold are confused. ITe scene between Tubal and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice reinforces such pairing, for the bitter Shylock, lamenting the loss of his jewels, including a diamond that cost him two thousand ducats, says, "I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her earl would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why so-and I know not what's spent in the search: why, thou loss upon lossl the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge, nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o' my shoulders, no sighs but o' my breathing, no tears but o' my shedding" (-HI.i. gi-0ox). He then learns that Jessica spent "in one night fourscore ducats" and gave for a monkey the turquoise ring Leah gave . Like Shylock, Brabantio had had a warning dream, although we do not know the content of the dream (I. i. 143-144). We learn about it only after he 5 "Othello: An Essay to Illustrate a Method". HudsonReview, IV (1951), 187. This content downloaded from 140.233.2.215 on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:56:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE FUNCTION OF BRABUNTIO IN OTHELLO 53 has heardof Desdemona'selopement, whereas Shylock tells us that he is reluc- tant to leavethe housebecause "I did dreamof money-bagstonight" (II. v. 18). Brabantio's words, "This accident is not unlike my dream", follow Roderigo's news of Desdemona's flight with Othello (II. 120-142), the first full, orderly ac- count of what has happened, for lago's words to Brabantio anger rather than inform him. The contextsuggests that Brabantio,like Shylock,dreamed of gold or somethingvaluable that couldbe stolen.Often in Shakespearethe contentof an undiscloseddream can be inferredfrom the context,as in The Merry Wives of Windsor,where we can assume that Ford's undiscloseddream had to do with horns (III. iii. I6). An importantdifference between The Merchantof Venice and Othello is that the lines reminiscent of Shylock's are spoken by lago and not by Brabantio. Looking at them from the point of view of lago's imagery, Professor Heilman interpreted them as Iago foisting "his moral derangement on the rest of the world",7 a case of the thief, who alreadyhad Roderigo'spurse, crying thief. Structurally considered, they must be interpreted differently. They help us get oriented in a play in which the characters are still unknown. We know Iago is a villain. He has so declared himself: "I am not what I am." But we don't know what Brabantiois like or how we should take him. Iago's lines tell us that Brabantiohas a daughterand money and that they have been stolen.If Shake- spearecould count on Jacobeanaudiences recognizing a stock situation,Iago's words "Look to your house, your daughter,and your bags!" would tie this situationto other plays of elopementand would preparethe audienceto side with the lovers against the father.8Such partisanshipis necessaryin Othello becausethe audiencedoes not have a full glimpse of the Othello who won Des- demona'sheart until scene three; in scene one only his enemies speak of him and then as "thick lips" (I. i. 66), "old black ram" (I. i. 88) and "lascivious Moor"(I. i. 127). If our sympathiesmust be with the lovers,something must be done in the first scene to modifythe esteemthe audiencefeels for the fatherop- posed.to the marriage.
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