THAT'S MOTIVATION ENOUGH

#OthElokuu

Eric Minton, US. June 2013.

IAGO IS THE SOLDIER'S SOLDIER: THAT'S MOTIVATION ENOUGH
This is a play of pathologies, and Iago's is his ego, specifically his military ego. This is a guy who probably sees himself as a general some day and that some day has been waylaid by a damn counter-caster.

In Othello, William Shakespeare inserts an extraordinary moment between Desdemona and Iago after their arrival in Cyprus before they know whether Othello has come safely to port—extraordinary in that it is an interchange that has echoes in reality among us military commander spouses. After some public joshing between them, Desdemona suddenly interrupts the wit war by asking, "There's one gone to the harbour?" "Ay, madam," Iago replies. "I am not merry, but I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise," she says and then, in the next line, goes back to the joking. This interlude is not accompanied by a stage direction, but if it is an aside between Desdemona and Iago, it establishes how much Desdemona, following her husband's lead, not only trusts Iago but leans on him herself.
Across the eons, the ubiquitous They have been pondering Iago's motivation in this play. Can it be only that he's upset over not being named Othello's lieutenant? Is it jealousy, whether directed at Cassio, Othello, or Desdemona? Is it the suspicion that Othello cuckolded him? Is it, perhaps, extreme insecurity? Is it racism? Meanwhile, the question I hear more often among modern audiences is how could Othello be so gullible?
My question is when did Shakespeare serve in the military? And I don't mean the 16th century English army or navy, but the 21st century armed forces. I grew up in the U.S. Air Force and was married to the Air Force 20-plus years, and, as a journalist, worked for or with every branch of the U.S. military. To me, Iago's actions and Othello's reactions are integral to the play's military context. Maybe Iago takes his being passed over for promotion to extremes—but maybe not.
Othello's military setting not only factors into Iago's motivation and Othello's gullibility, it provides the means for Iago to carry out his machinations and the environment that smoothes his way. It also offers clues to Iago's true personality that manifests in his sadistic behavior.
Granted, the military I know is 400 years removed from that of Shakespeare's time, but I'm struck by the extent to which Shakespeare establishes a military context that seems so familiar to me. And before I proceed with my observations, I want to state that while I can see Iago and Othello in today's military, I don't consider them representative of today's military. Iago is but one of 16-plus characters in Othello, or just over 5 percent of the play's population. That math could probably be accurately applied to the character of the modern military, as well. Unfortunately, as it is with Othello itself, it is that 5 percent that hogs the spotlight (even as I write this in an airport waiting lounge I'm hearing a CNN news report of the ongoing sexual assault scandal in the U.S armed forces). Why so much commentary on this play downplays or even overlooks Iago's internalized persona as a soldier is baffling, considering that his status in the army is foremost in his own mind. He brings it up with his third line in the play. His first two lines are interjections to Roderigo to patiently hear him, and then Iago explains how he sent Othello envoys "in personal suit to make me his lieutenant." This wasn't just any promotion. Though in today's military, a lieutenant is at or near the bottom of the officer rank structure, in the Venetian army Shakespeare is portraying, the lieutenant is the general's second in command, the vice commander. It doesn't carry a lot of prestige in the army's intersection with the civilian world (note that Cassio is silent in the senate scene), but within the military it is a position of great stature among the soldiers. While the commander provides the vision, sets the policies, and establishes the strategies, the deputy is the one who makes sure the commander's orders are carried out.
"Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight," Othello orders Cassio in Cyprus, and adds,"Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop not to outsport discretion." Cassio replies, "Iago hath direction what to do, but notwithstanding, with my personal eye will I look to't." Here's the chain of command explicitly established: the general turns command over to his deputy (the lieutenant) along with his overriding vision to not outsport discretion, and the deputy passes the order down the ranks to the first sergeant or platoon leader (Iago). For good measure, the deputy here assures the general he will follow up—but Othello has a telling reply we'll address in a bit.
Iago didn't merely covet the lieutenantship; he felt in his heart he earned it as the best man for the job. "I know my price, I am worth no worse a place," he tells Roderigo. Iago then recounts his combat record with Othello "at Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds Christened and heathen." Iago and Othello are war-bred brethren, whereas Cassio, according to Iago, doesn't even have combat experience. He "never set a squadron in the field nor the division of battle knows." Rather, Cassio is "a great arithmetician" and "counter-caster"—he's an accountant. In today's military, such administrative officers are derisively called bean counters, desk jockeys, admin weenies. Cassio's preferment over Iago is doubly galling to an infantry grunt like Iago. Meanwhile, Othello names Iago his ensign or ancient, which in the mid-16th century was the flag bearer in battle. Today, ensign is the lowest officer rank in the U.S. Navy, but in Shakespeare's portrayal of Iago he's akin to Othello's top-ranking non-commissioned officer (NCO).
At this point in Iago's explanation to Roderigo of why he hates the Moor, an interesting insight into Iago's true nature appears. Roderigo, a civilian, remarks that if it were he who had been so jilted, he would have become Othello's hangman. Iago, however, views it from a different perspective. "Why, there's no remedy," he says. "'Tis the curse of service." How true. In the military, if you don't make promotion you don't protest, pout, or plead, you just get on with doing your job or you get out. This reply to Roderigo shows Iago to be a soldier first and foremost, though one who has served long enough to become cynical, saying "Preferment goes by letter and affection, and not by old gradation, where each second stood heir to th'first."
In itself, this does not fully explain Iago's drive for revenge, but this is a play of pathologies, and Iago's is his ego, specifically his military ego. This is a guy who probably sees himself as a general some day and that some day has been waylaid by a damn counter-caster. That's hard for even the most upstanding among us to handle gracefully. Iago has earned his reputation through combat service; in peacetime, he becomes so restless he turns to gulling Roderigo for his adrenaline fix. Meantime, the fierce general he loyally followed all these years has suddenly started courting a young debutante and selected a pretty boy ("a fellow almost damned in a fair life," says Iago) as his second in command. All factor into his agitation (latent racism may be present, too).
Then there's that bedeviling rumor. "It is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets [Othello] has done my office," Iago says in his first soliloquy. "I know not if't be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety." In a later soliloquy, he hammers on this point again, that his suspicion "doth … gnaw my inwards." His wife, Emilia, brings up the accusation herself late in the play. "Some such squire he was that turned your wit the seamy side without and made you to suspect me with the Moor," she says to Iago in Desdemona's presence. Based on Iago's own doubts in the beginning and Emilia's casual dismissal of the rumor later with Othello's wife in the room, we can safely presume that Othello did not cheat with Emilia.
So what? It is the rumor alone that matters to Iago. Such rumors can run rampant in military communities, and whether true or not, they taint opinion among serving men and women. I once heard about a general's wife who had sex with various airmen on almost a daily basis in their home on base. I heard of an affair involving two officers, one of them the wife of a high-ranking member of the unit. I heard of the commander screwing an officer and enlisted woman on his staff. I have no idea if any of these are true, but regarding the last I had such a loathing for that commander that I, for mere suspicion, took it for surety. Maybe, in this respect, I am an Iago.
Except that Iago is also a man with criminal tendencies already established, as he's well into scamming Roderigo as the play begins. Remember, too, that Iago makes his way as he goes: He meditates on a course of action and then develops it as circumstances allow. When he realizes how much psychological power he's gained over Othello, that's when his pathological egotism pushes him over the edge into having Cassio murdered and getting Othello to murder Desdemona.
Which brings us to how Othello could allow himself to get into such a fix in the first place. We'll start where we left off in his exchange with Cassio about setting the guard that first night in Cyprus. "Iago hath direction what to do, but notwisthanding, with my personal eye will I look to't," Cassio says. "Iago is most honest," Othello replies. Critics point to this as one of many ironic lines that exemplify Iago's duplicity, but Othello's statement reads to me as a gentle admonishment of Cassio. The general is essentially telling the lieutenant, "Iago knows what he's doing" with the implied subcontext of "Let him do his job." I can't count the times I've heard commanding officers issue such rein-tugging hints to over-zealous lieutenants. As we'll see later, Cassio gets the hint.
Military ranks are divided between officers and enlisted (including NCOs). At the top of the NCO ranks, you have the sergeant major in the Army and Marine Corps, the master chief petty officer in the Navy, and the chief master sergeant in the Air Force, the latter two going by the sobriquet "Chief." Though even the lowest grade officer outranks them, senior NCOs are afforded the utmost regard by even the highest-ranking officers. I used to work with a retired Air Force chief master sergeant, and my wife, a retired colonel, always called her "Chief" out of respect. Whenever I told my wife about some difficulty I was having at work, she'd advise, "and what does the chief say?" Rare is the commanding officer who doesn't have a tight relationship with the unit's senior NCO, and in many cases the commander is closer to the chief or sergeant major than to the deputy.
It's clear from the stage business established in the dialogue that Iago fills the role of sergeant major to General Othello, and Shakespeare goes to great lengths to establish such a commander/chief relationship between Othello and Iago.

• The first conversation between general and ancient is one of easy bonhomie that transcends rank, and in it Iago is establishing his loyalty.
• Iago knows of Othello's elopement with Desdemona before Cassio does; though Cassio served as the couple's courtship liaison, he even asks who Othello has married when Iago brings it up.
• Othello requests that Desdemona be put in the care of Iago's wife. 

Thus do commanders put utmost trust in their senior NCOs. Every good senior leader expects his or her most-senior NCO to "speak truth to power." In return, one of the unspoken duties of a good NCO is to watch his or her commander's back, making sure the commander is not blindsided. Iago manipulates this commander-NCO paradigm. He drops casual observations to pique Othello's attention: "Ha? I like not that," an under-his-breath exclamation as they see Cassio steal away from Desdemona, spoken loudly enough for Othello to hear. Iago offers good counsel: "Beware, my lord, of jealousy." Iago briefs Othello on situational awareness: "I know our country disposition well: In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks they dare not show their husbands." And Othello demands Iago speak the truth: "I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings, as thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words." Iago first asserts his duty up and down the ranks: "Good my lord, pardon me. Though I am bound to every act of duty, I am not bound to that all slaves are free to. Utter my thoughts?" With this, Iago ironically gets Othello to set aside rank. "Thou does conspire against thy friend, Iago," Othello says.
Bred in the other half of the commander-NCO paradigm, Othello readily gets caught up in his ensign's web. And no matter how close commanders and senior NCOs become and how much mutual respect they may hold for each other, the moment they ignore their ranks and treat each other as equals, chaos comes.
It is also because of his reputation as a long-serving loyal soldier to Othello that Iago is able to ensnare Cassio in the first place. When Iago comes on stage after Othello and Desdemona have gone off to bed, Cassio tells him they "must to the watch." But Iago protests: "Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o'th' clock." Cassio has heard his general say not six lines before that "Iago is most honest" with its implied admonishment, so he's going to go along with the command sergeant major here (he might even figure that Othello would, too). Iago proposes Cassio join the party of revelers as a show of esprit de corps (and learns from this that the desk jockey can't handle his liquor—but the real soldier probably suspected that anyway), and after Cassio departs drunk, Iago surreptitiously imputes him to the other soldiers, calling him a "soldier fit to stand by Caesar and give direction" but one with a vice for drunkenness that could be his undoing. This sets up Cassio as the presumed bad guy when he comes back on stage running after Roderigo with sword drawn. Iago uses the same imputative device to slander Othello later in the play. "It is not honesty in me to speak what I have seen and known," he says to Lodovico after Othello strikes Desdemona in public. "You shall observe him, and his own courses will denote him so that I may save my speech." This is a soldier who knows how to walk the tightrope of loyalty to both his commander and his government while still covering his own rear.
Iago also plays the dual loyalty card brilliantly when he testifies about the drunken brawl to Othello. "I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth than it should do offence to Michael Cassio," he says, and upon this prelude, he tells the truth—and what he describes are, indeed, the facts—that inevitably will lead to the cashiering of Cassio. Accountability is the lot of the ranking officer—in this instance, Lt. Cassio—and Iago is certain of this before he proceeds.
The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre's recent production of Othello highlighted Iago's misogynist tendencies, and even in this context the soldier's persona may factor into his actions. For it's not just Cassio who has usurped Iago's place as war-bred brother of Othello; Desdemona has, too. "Our general's wife is now the general," he tells Cassio, and I sense this belief piles on the other sleights he's endured to further turn his stomach. Not only that, Othello brings Desdemona and Iago's wife along as he prepares to defend Cyprus from an invasion. This is a war zone! Even today, while we are now sending women into combat (to the gnashing of teeth of many an old Iago-like soldier) we certainly don't send soldiers' civilian wives (or husbands, for that matter) into war zones, or even potential war zones, as some posts in South Korea are unaccompanied assignments. For a professional soldier like Iago, this enforced domesticity means the war zone is no longer his comfort zone.
I've encountered some Iagos (just not quite so pathological). I know of more than a few Othellos who overextended their trust in their subordinates beyond rank and suffered downfalls as a result. I've not seen a subordinate getting his or her commander to kill a spouse—at least not literally. But I have no doubt from my personal experience and knowledge that reality could mirror this fiction some day (if it hasn't already), just as this fiction so adeptly mirrors today's reality.

Eric Minton
June 4, 2013

CRYSTAL QUEEN PROJECT XIV: LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE

"Right, let us begin, and when we have reached the end of the story, we shall know much more than we already know!"
This is one of my favourite narrative beginnings. In fact, it shares first place with Dickens's "best of times, worst of times" opening on my list ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only"). And that is because of their staying power; these two openings can be used to introduce practically any interesting tale because they can be applied to a practically limitless panoply of diverse settings and characters. There's no two children swimming in the stream, no fiftyish hidalgo living somewhere in La Mancha and eating a little more beef than mutton, no Mrs. Reed who makes the children stay indoors on a rainy, stormy evening, no Monsignor Bienvenu Myriel giving most of his revenues to the poor of the diocese... but these two story openings at the start of this article deal with knowledge, ignorance, optimism, pessimism, -not with any concrete places, characters, or historical periods- and Andersen even breaks the fourth wall by announcing that the story is about to begin.
And thus, this opening line can be applied to the creation of this very project as well. An open love letter to my native land and to Suchwanderung tales, to my favourite musical genres... a postmodern update of the Andersen tales rife with intertextuality... but now let us zoom out, out of it all, and have a peek at the bigger picture. And look at the whole puzzle once it has been finished in the middle of the throne room. Dumas's expanded adaptation had the puzzle represent a sun; the Gakken bunraku version, a rose; various illustrators and filmmakers, a heart; the Fairytaler Egmont 2009 two-part episode version, an ouroboros; my epic Voltaire-style literary tale The Apple, the Pear, and the Plum, a pair of wings (Just like most graphic versions have the mirror shard enter Kai's left eye, some have it plunge into the right, and a rare cluster have the fatal crystal gulped or breathed in down his throat.
It is this diversity that allows each version of the story to be slightly different from the others). No matter what the puzzle represents, it is by finishing it, and then by returning home as young adults, that our two young leads finally recognize that they have come of age.
The original Andersen tale ends like this:

 But Gerda and Kai went hand-in-hand towards home; and as they advanced, springtime appeared more lovely with its green verdure and its beautiful flowers. Very soon they recognized the large town where they lived, and the tall steeples of the churches, in which the sweet bells were ringing a merry peal as they entered it, and found their way to their grandmother’s door. They went upstairs into the little room, where all looked just as it used to do. The old clock was going “tick, tock,” and the hands pointed to the time of day, but as they passed through the door into the room they perceived that they were both grown up, and become young adults. The roses out on the roof were in full bloom, and peeped in at the windows; and there stood the little chairs, on which they had sat when children; and Kai and Gerda seated themselves each on their own chair, and held each other by the hand, while the cold empty grandeur of the Snow Queen’s palace vanished from their memories like a painful dream. The grandmother sat in the bright sunshine, and she read aloud from the Bible, “Except ye become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And Kai and Gerda looked into each other’s eyes, and all at once understood the words of the old song,

“Roses bloom and cease to be,
but true love is always free.” 

And they both sat there, grown up, yet children at heart; and it was summer,—warm, beautiful summer.

However, Alexandre Dumas's French translation/adaptation from the German goes the extra mile by ending like this (my own translation from the French): 

"Little Kai recognized the gate through which he had left, the streets through which he had passed, and, in the end, they stood in the threshold of two familiar townhouses. 
They climbed up Gerda's staircase and entered her grandmother's room. Everything was still in its place. The clock tick-tocked and told the time; it was only upon coming face and face with the mirror that they realized that Kai had become a dashing young man, and Gerda a beautiful maiden. The roses were still in full bloom in their boxes, and, next to the window, their little childhood chairs could be seen. 
Kai and Gerda sat down. They had forgotten the past like one forgets a bad dream, and it seemed to them that they had never left home.
ight then, the grandmother returned from church service, her storybook in hand. She greeted the dashing young man and the fair maiden, and, since she was not able to recognize them, so much had they changed, she asked for their names. 
And thus, both of them sang to her the song they once had learned: 

'The roses are in blossom in the vale...' 

The grandmother burst into a cry of joy: she had recognized the dashing youth and the beautiful maiden as Kai and Gerda. 
The next day, the bells whose sound they had recognized long before they had seen the towers were pealing for their marriage. 
Ten months later, the same bells pealed once more for the christening of the loveliest little twins: one was called Kai after his father; and the other, Gerda after her mother." 

This is actually a far longer expansion that ends with both of them as newlyweds and young parents, right before midlife sets in, like a conventional happy ever after.
My own more faithful rewriting of The Snow Queen, the so-called "Glenrose version," goes even further than Dumas's:

"When you pass through Glenrose, why don't you visit us?" Kai asked the reformed outlaw maiden. And Yrsa promised so, and she also showed them shortcuts through the woodlands and meadows of the kingdom, where a magnificent springtime increased for each and every day in flowers and in warmth, until she took her leave of them, teary-eyed and smiling, on the edge of a valley where a quite familiar spire towered over a cluster of pumpkin-orange eaves. And they heard five bell peals ring to a quite familiar tune: it was Glenrose, their native town, the place where both good friends were born and raised!
Gerda and Kai entered through the North Gate and ambled up the streets through which they had once left. Within an instant, they were finally on their own street, at the door of Gerda's place. The rose arch on the balcony had never been in such full bloom.
Everything was just like it had been before, and there was nothing new under the sun. The old cuckoo clock tick-tocked at the same old steady pace. Only upon peering into the little mirror did they realise that now they were young adults, good-looking and clever-eyed.
The roses were in bloom as usual on the balcony, and, from the window, one could see two child-sized chairs that they had already grown out of. 
Kai and Gerda sat down on those chairs. They had forgotten the past as if they had awakened from a long dream, and it seemed that they had never left home at all. Holding one another's hands, he looked into her green eyes, and she looked into her friend's blue eyes, and both of them realised the meaning of the song:

"Roses bloom and cease to be,
but true love is always free."

Then, Granny returned from church, hymn-book in hand, and she did not recognise the good-looking young people until Gerda and Kai sang their song once more:

"Roses bloom and cease to be,
but true love is always free."

The old lady shouted with glee and cried for joy as she embraced them, recognising her own granddaughter and said granddaughter's best friend.
There were both of them, all grown up and yet children at heart, and it was a day in springtime, the warm, lovely fair season.

A fortnight later, the tower bells whose sound they had recognised from afar were pealing for their marriage.
Nine months later, when the Snow Queen returned southward at the head of her army and coursed through the streets of Glenrose, the same bells pealed once more for the christening of the loveliest little twins: one of them named Kai just like his father, and the other named Gerda after her mother.
It would be impossible to tell of all the moments of happiness spent by this hopeful young family: moments of adventure like their assistance at the coronation of Queen Frederica and Prince Consort Frederick, or the twin children's baptismal celebration, or visits from the ever restless and bold traveller Yrsa; and everyday moments full of emotion such as the funeral of the beloved grandmother or the great adventure of being parents of their two own children.
We must say that, every winter, the Snow Queen peered in through the windowpanes on a certain street in a certain town in a certain kingdom, to behold the only one who had warmed her icy heart and made her feel what pain was like. She saw him happily married and father of two, cozily snuggled up with his loved ones by the fireside, and she thought of how irrational and unworthy of her it had been to fall for that young mortal, who was made for the life he currently led.
Gerda and Kai lived for a long time together in that land, without any tension with their children, who played during the warm seasons in the shade of the rose-bushes of yore, or in their relationship. To quote the old Bohemian proverb, they lived until they died with winter at the door, summer in the cupboard, autumn in the cellar, and springtime within their hearts.

Now The Crystal Queen, being an ultra-condensed and realistic postmodern update instead of this Victorian fantasy retelling, just ends with both our heroes holding hands at the frog pond --that pool, that "alberca" or "ranera" at the UJI's Jardín de los Sentidos that inspired me to write the tale-- while realising the meaning of this highly optimistic Shakespeare quote (Shakespeare instead of the Gospel of Matthew and/or Brorson!), whose very last verses are GOOD IN EVERYTHING. And it ends right there, letting the curtain fall while hinting at the disenchantment that comes with midlife. This ending is basically a carpe diem while retaining the exhortation to remain children at heart: enjoy the fish, the frogs, the water, the lilies, the papyri, the breeze, the sun, good literature while you can, while there is still a shred of enchantment left in your heart. While the words GOOD IN EVERYTHING apply to you.
I wrote this tale while, among other things, dealing with a depressive and stressed-out mother. Suddenly, the old Snow Queen story grew new life, took on new meanings. I also recalled the depressives, "people who constantly bewept a sorrow that they could not give a name," ("sådana, som ständigt gräto över en sorg, som de inte kunde ge namn" in original Swedish; "solche, die beständig über einen Kummer weinten, dem sie keinen Namen zu geben wußten" in the German translation; "otros lloraban por una desgracia que no llegaban a precisar" in Humpty Dumpty's translation for Colección Grandes Autores, Editorial Lumen) in Selma Lagerlöf's Passion legend "The Shroud of Veronica," who break into a King Lear-like frenzy when they are told that Pilate has just killed the man who would restore their missing soul and reason: "in despair, they began to wound themselves, until blood flowed on the pavement" ("och i sin förtvivlan började de sarga sig själva, så att blodet flöt på stenarna" in original Swedish; "sie begannen in ihrer Verzweiflung sich selbst zu zerfleischen, bis ihr Blut auf den Boden troff" in the German translation). The impact of the fact that depression is incurable for good, and that hearing the death wishes of a person I adore, often in response to slights I have done without that intention, but also often due to collapsing under the pressure that life puts upon her... it makes me feel powerless. You cannot uproot the mirror shard for good in that case --a grieving person stranded in the fourth stage of grief, having to cope with trauma--. So I also noticed that her case, and my grandmother's case of depression, and many other incurable ones, are in midlife... so I determined to make the most out of my youth before this finite resource known as healthspan --both physical and mental/emotional-- dwindles. The peak comes right in the thirties of life, in fact. This story, The Crystal Queen, is an exhortation, in part, to make the most out of the warm seasons of our lives before the cold seasons begin.
It is also a cautionary tale about drugs --the mirror shards are replaced with crystal meth, the witch's cherries with marijuana, the villainess's surname, Schierling, means Hemlock in German--. Chemistry replaces the mind-control magic of yore. All supernatural elements --a talking sun, animals, and plants; a flying carriage; the aforementioned Mirror of Truth-- are replaced with more realistic equivalents (vox pops, a convertible, crystal meth; respectively), this being a fairytale of the new millennium.