I've mentioned Fintan O'Toole's delightfully iconoclastic book called Shakespeare Is Hard But So Is Life (2002), and its demolishing of the fatal flaw theory, several times before. Well, here I go again. In this case, I'll be discussing his thoughts on the "double-time scheme" that Shakespeare employs to powerful dramatic effect in acts three, four and five of Othello. O'Toole's primary contention in this essay (titled "Othello: Inside Out") and in fact the entire book, is that Shakespeare's major tragic characters are trapped and torn between competing world-views, or time periods and their respective ways of thinking. In this play, Othello and Iago are moving in two historically opposite directions: Othello represents a new sort of man, one who has earned his place via merit and not birth or social standing; Iago stands for an older world-view, where things are done by convention and precedent. When Cassio is given a promotion that, according to this view, should have been his, he requires revenge. And as he pulls Othello into a psychological nightmare, both characters lose touch with the normal day-to-day world (which brings to mind Brutus' comment: "Between the acting of a dreadful thing/ And the first motion, all the interim is/ like a phantasma or a hideous dream..."). And they become, "out of synch with the times, Iago unable to reconcile himself to the new order, Othello ahead of the times as a man who has power but no status. This sense of the two men being out of their time becomes literal. We feel it and experience it as we watch the play - their fast, passionate time at odds with the normal unfolding of history." O'Toole's book is filled with thoughts like this one. I recommend it very highly.

Here are two interesting thoughts on the ending of King Lear: Fintan O'Toole in Shakespeare Is Hard But So Is Life (2002), writes that the ending, and more specifically the "gratuitous" death of Cordelia is meant to show that if there is no justice in a society, then what does it matter if there is a happy ending to a story about a bunch of powerful people? Marjorie Garber, in Shakespeare After All (2004) points to the idea that drama and its rituals have often been used for purposes other than aesthetic ones, and that one of these is to help prevent errors in judgement, like the ones made by Lear, that can have catastrophic results. Thus literature can (and should) have an "ameliorative" and perhaps "educative" purpose that helps in "warding off danger".

I strongly agree with both of these points, and the thought that I would add to them is this: I think the setting of the play is very important, and that it is meant to show a world without many of the concepts and institutions that we take for granted - and that it is also meant to make us consider the reasons why such things as philosophy, art and education were created. So yes, the ending of the play is a most tragic one, but in my opinion it's intended effect is not nihilistic, but rather deeply moral. It presents life unadorned to its audience and asks, "What are you going to do about it?"

Fintan O'Toole's Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life is a lot of fun to read. Its central concern is with permanently putting to silence the theory of the "Tragic Flaw", which for about a century dominated commentary on the tragedies. O'Toole contends that this view came about for the purpose of turning Shakespeare's great works (the book contains essays on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth) into Victorian morality lessons. And he's very convincing. I hadn't realized before how much space this unsupported (and quite ridiculous) position had occupied in the minds of readers. How unfortunate and misguided it was to reduce these incomparably rich works down to didacticism - to argue that Hamlet was guilty of "shirking", or some other nonsense, for example. Thank goodness for O'Toole, who uses wit, irony and powerful textual evidence to win the argument decisively and to put the emphasis back where it belongs: the thoughts, the language and the stories.

He also states that the great tragedies deal with protagonists who find themselves divided between world-views and/or time periods. For example, Hamlet finds himself torn between the medieval mindset of honour, blind loyalty and revenge (personified by the ghost) and the renaissance one of education, art and political change. There is a telling moment at the end of act one, scene two where after Horatio and the two guards (Marcellus and Bernardo) have told Hamlet about the existence of the ghost, they make plans to meet him later on the battlements, and then say goodbye to him in a formal, but appropriate way - he is a prince, after all. But Hamlet responds in a surprising fashion - and one that entirely supports O'Toole's ideas:

HAMLET

If it assume my noble father's person,

I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape

And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,

If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,

Let it be tenable in your silence still;

And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,

Give it an understanding, but no tongue:

I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:

Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,

I'll visit you.

All

Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET

Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.