Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/Fechter's "Othello"

by Charles Henry Butcher

FECHTER’S “OTHELLO.”

 

TO THE EDITOR OF “ONCE A WEEK.”

Sir,—Strong objections having been made to one point in my critique on “‘Othello’ at the Princess’s,’”^[1]—viz., my approval of Mr. Fechter’s “solution by the action with the toilet-glass of the difficult passage, ‘It is the cause,’”—I venture to send the grounds of the approbation then accorded. It is asserted that the sixth line of the opening soliloquy, “Yet she must die, lest she betray more men,” is the real explanation of the murder. To this I reply, that I do not conceive Othello to be in a state of mind in which logical precision is to be expected. He is throughout the last two acts, “wrought,” “perplexed,” “passion-tost.” His saying at one moment that he proposes to kill Desdemona, “lest she betray more men,” is by no means a reason why the old, old dread should not recur to him. From the beginning, in the trembling sensitiveness of his happiness, he has always felt amazed that a creature of such dazzling loveliness should give her heart to a scarred, sun-scorched soldier. He is easily jealous of Desdemona’s love, because the ease with which he won that love surprised him.

I conceive that nothing but a far-fetched explanation like that of Stevens^[2] can elucidate the words, “It is the cause,” save this glance at the reflex of the speaker’s own dusky person.

The course of thought in his wild, ulcerated heart is something like this:

“My blackness is the cause. Let me not name it to you, ye chaste stars, that such a trifle as a difference in the colour of our skins can make a woman play false to all her sacred vows. Yet” (the old idolatry coming back), “though it has been my curse, I will not mar or injure the beauty I have worshipped.”

————Yet I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.

The mention of her white skin at this moment proves the contrast which was in the speaker’s mind; that contrast could only be brought vividly before the audience by the action Mr. Fechter has introduced, and which I conceive to be the best solution yet given of the words “It is the cause.” With apologies for trespassing on your space, believe me, Sir, yours faithfully,

 

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1. See page 628.
2. Othello, full of horror at the cruel action which he is about to perpetrate, seems at this instant to be seeking his justification from representing to himself the cause, i.e., the greatness of the provocation he had received.—Stevens.