Honest, brave, witty. She is everything you could want in a Shakespearean hero/heroine, lacking only the title and recognition as such. I do my best to right this wrong and make the case for Emilia below. What are the reasons to love her?

1. Emilia Defeats Iago

Not just in the literal sense of exposing him but in living a better life and dying a better death.

Harold Bloom is correct to identify Iago with Milton’s Satan, full of resentment for Othello, the god he once held dear. For years, he put his faith in his commanding officer Othello and in his doctrine (war), serving with such fervor that when he is passed over for promotion, the disappointment is too much to bear. Like Satan, Iago’s loss of belief in his god leads to loss of belief in anything at all–he wades ever further into a pit of emptiness, dragging everyone down with him as he goes.

By contrast, Emilia places Desdemona on a pedestal, and she sees her purity and virtue proved through to the end as she all but witnesses her lady’s murder. Where Iago is degraded by disappointment, Emilia is inspired by enduring virtue. Running to the defense of her ideal, Emilia overcomes the social norms of wifehood and even the certain threat of her own death to expose Othello as murderer and later Iago as fraud. Her bravery and her righteousness are both on display:

Thou hast not half that power to do me harm
As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!
As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed–
I care not for thy sword; I’ll make thee known,
Though I lost twenty lives.

– Act V, Scene II, 163-167

Here, juxtaposed with Othello himself, we see true nobility in Emilia’s honesty and in her contempt for all things base. It costs her her life in a matter of seconds, but it immortalizes her as one of Shakespeare’s bravest and truest characters. In a play teeming with falsehood, this single act of courage resonates especially clearly, and it is the most moving image evoked by the work.

2. Emilia is Ever-Ascending

She is the only character whose reputation is enhanced by the play’s action. Iago reveals ever deeper levels of nihilism and spite, Othello turns from warrior to murderer, and the reputation-obsessed Cassio’s drinking and philandering starve us for his virtues. On the other hand, Desdemona begins so near perfection she is unable to improve; if anything, we lose a small bit of respect for her by seeing her naivete with respect to Othello.

But Emilia shows herself to be far more than the wife of Iago or the maidservant of Desdemona, as the play would nominally cast her. We first meet her in Act II, Scene I, when the evil Iago is insolently deriding her in front of mixed company; she is permitted only three, one-line responses in her defense. Compare that to Act IV, Scene III, Emilia’s masterpiece, wherein she proves herself to be the witty and sagacious advisor to her noble lady Desdemona. Here, she speaks 50 of the scene’s 117 lines, more eloquent and far funnier than any other character in the play.

She rises in our estimation with each scene, culminating in her heroic confession at the end of the play. Her continually expanding role and voice suggest that Emilia must have grown on Shakespeare himself as the play unfolded.

If Iago is the devil of pure doubt, Emilia is the martyr of true belief, the savior riding in on a donkey. Her virtue reveals itself slowly and more boldly from act to act, until she has well outgrown our first impression and taken her rightful place among Shakespeare’s most authentic heroes/heroines.

3. Emilia Could Have Been a Falstaff

The great pity of Othello is that Emilia was not a greater focus, that more words were not given to such a distinct and amusing voice. She is kind but not simple, honest but not naive. Her virtue is an earned one, clear-eyed and sophisticated in the midst of corruption and moral decay.

Her humor is delightful, and her insight is cutting. Had she but been allotted the lines to do it, she could have been even Falstaff’s lyrical equal. Rather than belabor the point, I’ll let her speak:

Desdemona: Would thou do such a deed for all the world?
Emilia: Why, would not you?
Des.: No, by this heavenly light!
Em.: Nor I neither by this heavenly light; I might
do ‘t as well i’ the dark.
Des.: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
Em.: The world ‘s a huge thing: it is a great price
For a small vice.

– Act IV, Scene III, 64-69

And in that same scene:

Emilia: Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. […]
…and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

– Act IV, Scene III, 94-104

Like Falstaff’s, this is not a voice or resentment or complaint–it is simply the truth, deftly spoken, a refusal to be subject to anyone or anything unworthy of her subjugation. Moreover, no matter how serious the subject, there is always the flicker of levity that accompanies any virtuoso as they practice their craft.

Conclusion

I should conclude by noting that I actually very much enjoyed Iago and Othello as characters as well, but much has been said already of their merits. I am sure there is a wonderful corpus of scholarship on Emilia, and I plan to read more of it, but for now suffice it to say that she remains underrated.

Rating: 8/10

**This post is Part 12 of an ongoing series in which I’ll be reading various Shakespeare plays, along with the Harold Bloom commentary from his book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and providing my thoughts/reactions.**