Download Emi LaFountain In the play Othello by William Shakespeare, many

Emi LaFountain
In the play Othello by William Shakespeare, many characters show feelings of internal
conflict through speech and action, but none do so more clearly than Emilia, wife of the man
who represents evil and maid to the woman who epitomizes good and innocence. Torn between
loyalties, Emilia embodies the theme of emotional and physical conflict evident within nearly all
of the characters in the play.
Emilia struggles between being loyal to both her mischievous husband and her mistress
Desdemona, both of whom have conflicting interests. Ironically, Emilia encounters similar
loyalty issues to Desdemona, who in Act I, said “Here is my husband, / and so much duty as my
mother showed / to you, preferring you before her father /…I may profess / Due to the Moor my
lord” (I.iii.180-185). Yet Emilia’s similar devotion to her husband contributes to the fall of her
mistress Desdemona. Her devotion and desire to please her husband leads her to steal
Desdemona’s handkerchief: “That the Moor first gave to Desdemona/ That which so often you
[Iago] did bid me steal (III.iii.310-311). Yet this token was used as a test of Desdemona’s
fidelity, which she failed due to Emilia’s naïve efforts. Emilia realizes the full weight of her
actions later in the play as they contribute to Desdemona’s tragic end.
Emilia’s internal conflict is also exemplified throughout the play in the form of guilt.
Although it’s clear that Emilia attempts to please Iago, in Act III she simultaneously shows
concern for Desdemona’s happiness as she gives him her handkerchief: “If it be not for some
purpose of import / Give’t me again, poor lady, she’ll run mad / When she shall lack it”
(III.iii.314-316). Similar guilt is shown as Iago’s plot began to unravel, as she confesses
honestly, “…that handkerchief thou speak’st of I found by fortune, and did give my husband, /
For often with a solemn earnestness /…He begged of me to steal it” (V.ii.220-224). Clearly,
while it is evident she was doing Desdemona wrong at the time, she thought that by stealing her
handkerchief, she was being a good wife.
Emilia’s conflicting emotions finally reveal themselves in the form of honesty and a
sense of justice. Had not Emilia felt compelled to be honest, Emilia would have come across as
an antagonist of similar caliber to her husband. Yet her honesty is revealed prominently twice in
the play. The first is when she is consoling Desdemona after Othello accuses her of infidelity and
openly but unwittingly curses the man behind it all in front of her husband: “I will be hanged if
some eternal villain / Have not devised this slander” (IV.ii.130-135). Clearly Emilia still
believes she is loyal to two innocent forces. But this contradicting loyalty is broken when, in the
final Act of the play, she accuses her husband of his foul actions: “No, I will speak as liberal as
the north /…All, all cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak” (II.ii.217-219). This realization that
she could not be loyal to two opposing forces is a predominant and tragic theme in the play that
is evident within nearly all of the play’s main characters.
Because Emilia so strongly represents the pressures of being caught between loyalties,
she is essential to the theme of the story as a whole. She puts in physical and verbal form the
conflict that characters such as Othello and Desdemona feel but can’t well express. Thus, Emilia
is the thematic backbone of the play Othello.