Time.and.Speed

Back to Othello

**Time and Speed Summary** [|Activity 3 - Time and Speed] Derek Mui


 * The time scheme in Othello seems short at first, and you don’t seem to realize how much time goes by.
 * Act II to V covers only 33 hours, but the whole play seems to span over a couple of days. This relates to the ‘double time scheme’ that Shakespeare has written for Othello.
 * Several things that suggest a significant period of time has past include:
 * The voyage between Venice and Cyprus taking several weeks
 * Emilia says that Iago has asked her many times to steal the handkerchief
 * Bianca says Cassio has not seen her in a week
 * Othello believing Desdemona and Cassio had sex "a thousand times"
 * Roderigo’s numerous visits to Iago, and him waiting for a response for Desdemona ‘every day’
 * Asked to compose a schedule of the events in Cyprus and record the specific time references that signify one full day and night has passed.
 * Day one: the Venetian ships arrive in the morning, Iago tells Roderigo of his plan to intoxicate Cassio in the evening. The herald announces feasting from “this present hour of five till the bell have told eleven.”
 * Night one: Just before ‘ten o’ clock’ Iago and Cassio drunk, Othello comes to find the fight in the street. When it is dawn, Cassio agrees to Iago’s suggestion to go to Desdemona for her help in getting his job back.
 * Day two: Cassio comes and talks to Desdemona, when Othello comes back from checking the fortifications, where he notices Cassio’s hasty departure. Othello’s suspicions increase and by the end of the day, Othello has already decided to murder Desdemona, and Iago has told Roderigo to kill Cassio.
 * Night two: After just a few hours of Othello going to the bed chamber, he, Desdemona and Emilia are dead, Cassio is appointed governor or Cyprus and Iago is arrested.
 * The fact that these events only happen in a time span of two days emphasizes how easily Othello can be persuaded into killing his wife, and how manipulative Iago can be.
 * From the double time scheme, Shakespeare gains this contrast in time and pace, where it seems that time is against Othello and Desdemona (as seen by Desdemona failed attempts to help Cassio retain his position and Othello’s suspicions growing against Desdemona), and time is on Iago’s side. It also emphasizes Othello’s sudden growth of jealousy and twisted imagination that Desdemona and Cassio could have had sex a thousand times.
 * The nighttime is quite significant, because under the cover of darkness, people reveal their deep dark secrets. Iago reveals his plans to the audience in the nighttime. Roderigo usually meets Iago in the night, and he is rarely seen by the other characters in the play. Cassio’s different behavior at night, for example when he is drunk or his affairs with Bianca. The play starts and ends in the night, which signifies the battle between good and evil is won by evil.
 * Iago’s soliloquies are quick thinking, calculating, and cunning. His plot is spun from his mind and he not only seems to be reacting to the speed of events, but also controlling them. This gives the impression that time and speed are on his side. He always reacts and comments on an action just completed and then he immediately sets up another afterwards. This gives the impression that he is the driving force of the plot of the play and links it all together.
 * When Othello changes from a doting husband into a lamenting one, it shows how easy emotions can change humans. Iago’s power is immense as he can actually turn a newly married man to someone who wants to murder his wife. With the absence of a scene break between Othello’s change of mind, it means more pressure and tension can be put on Othello.
 * The overall pace of the play seems to be against all characters except Iago, as things are going according to plan. The play seems to run too fast in the beginning, skipping the hours of love and the war, Emilia arrives too late to save her mistress, and Othello is keen on murdering his wife on that specific night. After a marriage in the beginning of the play that is too late to change and is irreversible, everything that happens in the play seems to stem from this very marriage.