The Contrasting Speech Styles of Iago and Othello in Shakespeare's "Othello"

An example of Iago’s speech style (Act 1, Scene 1; Lines 91-124)

• "Iago: Are your doors lock'd?
• Brabantio: Why, wherefore ask you this?
• Iago: 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on
  your gown;
  Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
  Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
  Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
  Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
  Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
  Arise, I say.
• Brabantio: What, have you lost your wits?
• Roderigo: Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
• Brabantio: Not I. what are you?
• Roderigo: My name is Roderigo.
• Brabantio: The worser welcome:
  I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:
  In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
  My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
  Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
  Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
  To start my quiet.
• Roderigo: Sir, sir, sir,—
• Brabantio: But thou must needs be sure
  My spirit and my place have in them power
  To make this bitter to thee.
• Roderigo: Patience, good sir.
• Brabantio: What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
  My house is not a grange.
  Roderigo. Most grave Brabantio,
  In simple and pure soul I come to you.
• Iago: 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not
  serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to
  do you service and you think we are ruffians, you'll
  have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;
  you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have
  coursers for cousins and gennets for germans."

In this excerpt, Iago uses crude bestial and sexual imagery to dehumanize Othello to his father-in-law, Brabantio, and to make him out to be the other, something strange to be wary of. Consider his choice of words to describe Othello: “old black ram,” “Barbary horse,” and so on. To complete the image of bestial sexuality, he even crudely describes Desdemona as a “white ewe” that is topped by the “black ram” of Othello. As we can see, cunning racist code words are aplenty in this excerpt, as well as throughout the play. “Barbary” refers to North Africa, and “coursers,” “gennets,” and “germans” are different types of horses. In short, Iago tells Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, that if he doesn’t do anything about his daughter’s dalliance with Othello, she will deliver a brood of horses.

An Example of Othello’s speech style (Act 2, Scene 1, Lines 183-193)

• "Othello: It gives me wonder great as my content
  To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
  If after every tempest come such calms,
  May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
  And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas
  Olympus-high and duck again as low
  As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,
  'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
  My soul hath her content so absolute
  That not another comfort like to this
  Succeeds in unknown fate."

Othello makes this joyous speech immediately after passing through a storm at sea near Cyprus and being reunited with his beloved Desdemona. Contrast Othello’s elegant choice of words and turns of phrases in describing his feeling of love for, joy in, and sense of contentment in Desdemona with the vulgar and bestial vocabulary. Othello, in this speech, indicates that in Desdemona, his contentment is so complete that it knows no bounds – not of the sky, sea, heaven, or hell and certainly not of death or fate.