SOURCE: Rovine, Harvey. “Silence as Confrontation.” In Silence in Shakespeare: Drama, Power, and Gender, pp. 53-69. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987.

[In the following essay, Rovine associates the silence of male characters in Shakespeare's comedies with their social alienation, and the silence of men in the tragedies and histories with a variety of motives—including antagonism, treachery, and a desire to influence or control the actions of others.]

Whereas the silence of women often implies a passive acceptance of circumstances or a faith that events will turn out for the best, the silence of men can be more purposeful. Men's silence can show loyalty, service, antagonism, confrontation or enmity. Perhaps the reason for the difference is that the women's world is largely confined to domestic relationships with usually strong men which often leads the female characters to a silence of acceptance. Men have a wider range of roles and their characters are not so strictly defined by domestic relationships. In fact, men often give precedence to social or political demands over their domestic obligations. For example, in 1 Henry IV Hotspur's wife, Kate, pleads with her husband to reveal the “heavy business” (II,3,63) that has disturbed the intimacy of their relationship. Hotspur, however, holds thoughts of the rebellion uppermost in his mind and evades Kate's questions until he leaves her with the promise that she will join him tomorrow. Similarly, in Julius Caesar, Brutus avoids answering Portia's entreaty to reveal the “sick offense” within his mind (II,1,268). Portia tries to persuade Brutus that she will not “disclose” his counsels and offers proof of her “constancy” by showing him her self-inflicted wound. Her display of unwomanly valor overwhelms Brutus for the moment, as he apostrophizes, “O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife” (302-3). But Brutus's thoughts quickly return to political matters when someone is heard knocking. Brutus realizes that the late-night interruption must concern the conspiracy, and he puts aside his personal considerations and urges Portia to go inside. Portia reluctantly goes as Brutus promises to disclose the secrets of his heart “by and by” (305).

At times Shakespeare dramatizes the precedence men give to obligations other than their families by counterpoising the female's silent acceptance against the male's verbosity. Again, in Julius Caesar, Shakespeare presents a wife pleading with her husband to ignore the obligations of state. Calphurnia begs Caesar not to go to the Capitol because of the “horrid sights seen by the watch” (II,2,16). Calphurnia's fears are intensified when the Servant reveals the unfavorable report of the augurers, and she entreats Caesar to ignore his political obligations and stay at home. Calphurnia's victory is momentary, for when Decius enters and reinterprets Calphurnia's ominous dream, Caesar yields to the demands of state:

How foolish do your fears seem now Calphurnia!
I am ashamèd I did yield to them.
Give me my robe, for I will go.

(105-7)

Calphurnia is silent and apprehensive as she observes Caesar prepare to go to the Capitol. Calphurnia's silence suggests the helplessness of her situation, and is counterpoised against the loquacity of Caesar. As Caesar joyfully converses with the conspirators, we realize that his political obligations are more important than his domestic relationship, and Calphurnia's silent presence is a sad reminder of the fatal choice Caesar's ego forces him to make between the two.

In domestic situations, the silence of men can indicate many of the same emotions that the silence of women usually evokes. In Macbeth, the silence of Macduff accentuates the depth of his grief when he learns of the slaughter of his family. When Ross delivers the horrifying report about Macbeth's surprise attack on Macduff's castle, Macduff's response is a silent action that illustrates his shock:

ROSS:
Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these related deer,
To add the death of you.
MALCOLM:
                                                                                                              Merciful heaven!
What, man! Ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
MACDUFF:
My children too?

(IV,3,204-11)

Macduff's silence is broken only by repeated questions to confirm the horror:

My wife killed too?
.....Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

(213)

In spite of the woeful news, Macduff soon begins to articulate his emotions. The transition from stunned silence to a planned action expressed by words is completed when Macduff implores fate to give him the opportunity to kill Macbeth:

MACDUFF:
O, I could play the woman with my eyes,
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him. If he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
MALCOLM:
                                                                                This time goes manly.

(230-35)

Macduff expresses the difference between the expected emotional responses of men and women to devastating news. Women can only “play” with their eyes, and their tears betoken a silent passive acceptance. Men, however, can respond by playing the “braggart with [their] tongue,” and their words are considered manly even if they become mere boasting. Malcolm's response concerning the manliness of Macduff's words confirms that men are expected to act and not remain passive. Macduff's reference to Macbeth as “this fiend of Scotland” reveals that he has already recast his personal sorrow into a political frame. Macbeth is not referred to as the heinous slaughterer of Macduff's family, but rather as the country's demon, and Macduff's hoped-for confrontation almost seems motivated more by politics than by personal revenge. Thus the silence of men, like that of women, can depict passivity or a sense of being acted upon, but the silence of the initial shock quickly passes to a spoken desire for action.

The silence of men in situations other than domestic or familiar ones is, therefore, often puzzling or disturbing to other characters who expect manly speech. Macduff's silence at the news of the massacre of his family is actually the second time in the scene that he hears something which he responds to in silence. Prior to Ross's entrance, Malcolm has tested Macduff's loyalty. Malcolm suggests that if he were king, he would be a worse tyrant than Macbeth. Malcolm does not offer the suggestion in earnest, but as a way of inviting Macduff to speak:

                                                            Nay, had I pow'r, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.

(97-100)

Macduff proves that he is loyal to Scotland with an apostrophe to his country:

                                                                                          O nation miserable!
With an untitled tyrant bloody sceptered,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accursed,
And does blaspheme his breed?

(103-8)

Malcolm, of course, is pleased with Macduff's loyalty, but when he admits that he was only testing Macduff and that the “taints and blames” he laid upon his character are not part of his true nature, Macduff does not acknowledge his understanding by speaking. Apparently Macduff is confused by “such welcome and unwelcome” news, and perhaps stares uncomprehendingly at Malcolm. Although Malcolm's frustration with Macduff's reticence increases until he finally asks Macduff, “Why are you silent” (137), Malcolm continues to try to prove his integrity by providing a catalogue of his own innocence and virtues:

                                                                                                                                  I am yet,
Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
At no time broke my faith, would not betray
The devil to his fellow, and delight
No less in truth than life. My first false speaking
Was this upon myself. What I am truly,
Is thine and my poor country's to command:
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point, was setting forth.
Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?

(125-37)

Malcolm's question arises as much from frustration as from curiosity. Perhaps he expected Macduff to be bewildered by his portrait of a man who would be a worse king than Macbeth, but having explained the reason for his deceit, Malcolm expects Macduff to acknowledge his understanding by speaking. Macduff's sustained silence prompts Malcolm to explain himself in various ways. Finally, Malcolm exhausts the supply of available explanations and demands to know the reason for Macduff's silence. Macduff's answer suggests that the turn of events have confused him, “Such welcome and unwelcome things at once / 'Tis hard to reconcile” (138-39). Macduff, like many of the female characters in tragedy, appears overwhelmed by events and falls silent. Yet his silence does not become a retreat from the world. The silence represents a temporary confusion, one which he soon overcomes. Men are expected to be active and not passive, and are expected to speak, to “give sorrow words,” even when confronted with astonishing news. At the end of his first soliloquy, Hamlet may say, “But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (I,2,159), but as the play reveals, he does not maintain silence very long. In fact, Hamlet speaks to the audience directly more than any other character in Shakespeare.

In comedy, young men in love are frequently silent at the sight of their beloved. Characters like Claudio and Orlando become mute in the presence of Hero and Rosalind, but their tongue-tied condition soon passes so they actively pursue their romance with speech. Ultimately, it is the men's job to speak up and court the women, so that by the end of the play we see the men and women either married or soon to be wed. Often at the end of comedy, the men are the ones who speak about the wedding plans while the women remain silent. In Measure for Measure, Isabella stands silent as the Duke proposes marriage. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona Silvia does not utter a word as her father gives her in marriage to Valentine. And, as Angela Pitt points out, in A Midsummer Night's Dream,

There is a suggestion at the end of the play that male dominance is important. Once the four lovers have been satisfactorily paired off, Hermia and Helena virtually disappear from the play. They are present at the entertainment provided for Theseus and Hippolyta, but it is Demetrius and Lysander who talk about the craftsmen's efforts. The women become the conservative, sixteenth-century ideal: submissive and silent.¹

The meaning of the female characters' silence at the end of comedy may reflect the proverbial notion that silence gives consent.² In comedy we are prepared for certain obstacles along the way such as intervening parents or mistaken identities, but, in the end, we expect a sense of agreement to prevail. While the silence of the female characters at the ends of the plays may confirm the harmonious atmosphere, the silence of certain male characters at the conclusion of a play tends to express enmity, not agreement.

Men who are silent at the ends of comedies are not lovers but outcasts. These silent characters do not fit into the harmonious community of individuals usually onstage at the conclusion. Their silence draws attention to their estrangement from the society and accentuates the discord between the outcast and the community. In The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses the final silences of Shylock and Malvolio to emphasize the confrontation between the character and the community. The promises of marriage at the conclusions of both plays give each one an expected harmonious ending, but not before Shylock and Malvolio silently acknowledge their defeat by society and exit.

Shylock's final silence at the end of the trial scene (IV,1) signifies his defeat in the Venetian court of law. Throughout the scene, Shylock demands his bond, Antonio's pound of flesh, which he claims is rightfully his according to the law. Despite Portia's arrival as the lawyer Balthasar, it appears as if Shylock's demand for justice will prevail. But when Portia reveals a fine point of Venetian law:

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are by the laws of Venice confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.

(307-11)

Shylock realizes that he is defeated. Although Shylock attempts to talk his way out of the situation, “I take this offer then. Pay the bond thrice / And let the Christian go” (317-18), the Venetian court has yet “another hold” on Shylock:

It is enacted in the laws of Venice,
If it be proved against an alien
That by direct or indirect attempts
He seek the life of any citizen,
The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive
Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
And the offender's life lies in the mercy
Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice.

(347-55)

The Duke pardons Shylock's life and Antonio remits his share of the fine, provided Shylock agrees to leave his possessions to Lorenzo and Jessica upon his death and agrees to convert to Christianity. Shylock's final words express his resignation “I am content,” and

I pray you give me leave to go from hence.
I am not well. Send the deed after me,
And I will sign it.

(393-96)

When Shylock does not reply to the Duke's terse command or Gratiano's final taunting remark,

DUKE:
                                                                                                    Get thee gone, but do it.
GRATIANO:
In christ'ning shalt thou have two god fathers.
Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more
To bring thee to the gallows, not the font,

(396-99)

we realize that he is totally defeated. We may expect some final reply from Shylock, but his sense of loss is beyond words. There may be also an element of pride in Shylock's final silence, a pride which will not allow him to display his misery in front of the Venetians.³

Malvolio's silence in the final scene of Twelfth Night (V,1) may also be due in part to pride, but it also must register a certain anger and resentment. Malvolio must listen silently to the explanation of how the trick was played on him. As with Shylock's silence, we can only wonder what Malvolio is thinking while he looks at the characters representative of a society which does not have a place for him. Although his final utterance, “I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you” (385), suggests a possible future action, his long silence reminds us that he is ultimately alienated from the harmonious community of Illyria. Like Shylock, he is an outcast who must undergo a change before being admitted to the society represented by the other characters. Malvolio's silent presence during the explanation of the forged letters also provides for some moments of evaluation by the audience: how far must a joke go before it is no longer sport but merely cruel? Neither Malvolio nor Shylock evokes our unadulterated sympathy throughout the plays; indeed, Shakespeare presents both characters as worthy of much ridicule. Yet in their final silences we begin to see a certain humanity in each man, as both exit to bear their suffering alone. Comedy, however, must end happily. Both The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night fulfill this necessity, but not before the social outcasts are removed from the festive conclusions. The separation is marked by each formerly talkative outcast acknowledging his defeat with an unexpected lack of words.

In the tragedies and histories, Shakespeare often uses the quality of enmity or discord expressed by the silence of men like Shylock or Malvolio to dramatize confrontations between characters, and in these confrontations the silent character is seldom as powerless as Shylock or Malvolio.⁴ At times the confrontation may take the form of silent action as in 1 Henry VI when the Yorkist and Lancasterian nobles indicate their allegiance by plucking white or red roses. Plantagenet, impatient with the reticence of the assembled nobility, suggests that each indicate their respective loyalty without words:

Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him that is a true-born gentleman
And stands upon the honor of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

The Lancasterian Somerset adds:

Let him that is no coward or flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

(II,4,25-33)

The silent action clearly delineates the confrontation between the two factions engaged in the nation's civil strife. In this case, the characters are aware of the explicit opposition their silent action creates, as well as the impending danger.

It is possible for a silent character to be part of a confrontation without realizing that his silence is responsible for defining the conflict. In the second scene of Julius Caesar as Caesar and his entourage return from the games, Brutus's silent presence next to Cassius helps establish the lines of opposition in the play. The entrance of the royal party occurs just after Cassius has planted the first thoughts of revolt in Brutus's mind. Returning from the games, Caesar notices Brutus and Cassius silently standing together and observes to Antony:

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.
'Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous
.....                                                                                                                        He reads much,
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything.

(I,2,192)

Although Caesar continually refers to Cassius throughout the speech, Brutus's silent presence next to Cassius may also make the audience question Brutus's loyalty to Caesar.

Brutus's mute presence next to Cassius visually suggests the possibility that he will consent to the conspiracy. After all, we have heard Brutus promise to consider what Cassius has said about Caesar, and when Caesar enters, Brutus makes no attempt to greet Caesar or join the royal procession. Indeed, we may begin to perceive from Brutus's silence the capitulation to the conspiracy which will soon follow.

In performance, the silent Brutus with the lean and hungry Cassius counterpoised against the speech of Caesar and Antony provides the audience with a visual image of the play's main confrontation. Caesar's speech, ego-centered as it is, nonetheless is what we expect of a ruler. Despite the paranoia Caesar displays, we know what he is thinking at least. On the other hand, Brutus and Cassius conceal their true feelings by maintaining their silence. Cassius has told Brutus what he thinks of Caesar, and even though Brutus has not verbally acknowledged his agreement, his silence speaks for him. The audience understands from Brutus's silence that Brutus is leaning in the direction of the conspiracy. The stage picture Shakespeare creates prepares us for the main confrontation of the play—the silent conspiracy of Brutus and Cassius against the authority of Caesar and then Antony.

Brutus may be unaware of the meaning of his silence, but silent characters who represent a faction against the established authority are not always so unaware of the implications of their silence. At times, a character may choose silence as a method of demonstrating his opposition or antagonism to a ruler.

In Richard II, Shakespeare bases the conflict between the two main characters on a dialectic between silence and words. The contrast between Bolingbroke and Richard is defined theatrically by their opposing approaches to speech. While Richard indulges in rhetoric, Bolingbroke is reticent and avoids lengthy speeches whenever possible. The situation is similar to the Brutus-Caesar confrontation where the monarch reveals his thoughts through speech. Bolingbroke, like Brutus the “traitor,” is silent and thus his true feelings are unknown, and in that sense he is potentially dangerous to the King. Perhaps, ironically, after Bolingbroke becomes King in 1 and 2 Henry IV, he speaks much more freely and revealingly, but his ascension to the throne, dramatized in Richard II, is characterized by his silence. Bolingbroke's reticence is at times mysterious, unsettling, or even frustrating to Richard, but the one constant quality implied by his silence is strength. Ann Barton contrasts Richard II with Marlowe's Tamburlaine, in which the hero demonstrates supreme strength with grand rhetoric, and concludes that, “Shakespeare's man of power, Bolingbroke, simply does not believe in the transforming power of language.”⁵ Throughout the play, Shakespeare shows how Richard's rhetoric ultimately portrays his weakness and how Bolingbroke's relative silence reveals his growing strength.

Shakespeare dramatizes the confrontation between the reticent Bolingbroke and the talkative Richard on three occasions—at the lists at Coventry, before Flint Castle, and in the deposition scene. At the lists at Coventry (I,3), Shakespeare draws attention to Bolingbroke's silence after Henry is banished by Richard. Gaunt's intervention on his son's behalf provides for a reduction of Bolingbroke's length of exile; however, Henry's reply is decidedly less thankful than resigned:

How long a time lies in one little word.
Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
End in a word—such is the breath of kings.

(212-24)

Bolingbroke's subsequent silence is all the more pronounced because he separates himself from the other characters onstage. When Richard leaves, his farewell to Gaunt suggests that Bolingbroke may not be close by, “Cousin, farewell, and uncle, bid him so; / Six years we banish him, and he shall go” (246-47). Bolingbroke's silent presence, apart from the King for more than thirty lines, is a visual image of the main conflict of the play: the verbose Richard surrounded by his entourage and the silent, sullen figure of Bolingbroke isolated from his friends, family and King. The stage picture is similar to the first court scene of Hamlet as the Prince stands silent and apart from the glib Claudius and his attendants. After Richard exits, Bolingbroke maintains his silence despite the friendly words of Aumerle and the Marshal:

AUMERLE:
Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,
From where you do remain let paper show.
MARSHAL:
My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
As far as land will let me by your side.

Bolingbroke does not reply, and Gaunt questions the reasons for his reticence, “O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, / That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?” Bolingbroke's reply,

I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue's office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart,

(248-56)

suggests that his banishment so saddens him that he can barely find the appropriate words of farewell for his father, but in fact only hides his anger. Further, he attaches a negative value to his silence by noting that he should be able to speak lavishly about the sadness in his heart. Yet as the play reveals, Bolingbroke is not the kind of man who is ordinarily confounded by circumstances. Bolingbroke's reticence following the pronouncement of his banishment is the self-restraint of a man assessing his adversary and beginning to plan his revenge.

Of course, subordinates are expected to be silent when an authority figure speaks. As King, Richard commands silence whenever he speaks, but he cannot command the thoughts of his silent subordinates. Bolingbroke's silence following his banishment could be considered the silence of a dutiful courtier. Yet he maintains his silence after Richard's exit, and the spoken reason he offers for the silence seems out of character for him. Bolingbroke's reticent behavior in this scene is not in deference to his sovereign; it is the silence of a man who feels he is unjustly punished and wants revenge. Possibly, Shakespeare is avoiding a delicate contemporary political issue in this scene, as well as in the scenes at Flint Castle and the deposition. The political sensitivity of the play's subject was, perhaps, tempered by Bolingbroke's silence. If the usurper was given to rhetoric, then Shakespeare might have had to supply him with speeches which might have made the play seem like a direct attack on the throne. The less Bolingbroke says and the more ambiguous his thoughts, the easier it is for Shakespeare to write a play about the deposition of a monarch. In fact, Shakespeare uses Richard's love of rhetoric to advantage, for the King's many elaborate speeches reveal his “continuing addiction to words and traditional formulae,”⁶ an important aspect of his inability to rule.

Even during the climatic confrontation at Flint Castle, Bolingbroke's silence does not give away his plotting nature. When Richard appears on the walls, Bolingbroke is careful not to say anything. In fact, Northumberland speaks to Richard on Bolingbroke's behalf:

                                                                                                    Thy thrice-noble cousin,
Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand,
And by the honorable tomb he swears
.....His coming hither hath no further scope
Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
Infranchisement immediate on his knees;
Which on thy royal party granted once,
His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
To faithful service of your majesty.

(III,3,102)

Bolingbroke's silence, ambiguous in I,3 is purposeful and carefully contrived at Flint Castle. He is a master politician who has others do his talking for him. Had Bolingbroke, instead of Northumberland, begged “infranchisement,” he would place himself in the weaker position of subject arguing with his king. By having others speak for him, Henry can remain silent and his actions appear to have the consent of the speaker. His silence makes him seem almost passive, but this is deceiving. He is a man who knows that silence can be as effective as language in getting what he wants. Despite his hatred for Richard, he has observed the King's addiction to rhetoric and realized that lofty speech alone does not make an effective ruler.

In the deposition scene (IV,1) Bolingbroke is content to remain silent while Richard once again indulges in rhetoric. This is the third time in the play that the taciturn Bolingbroke is placed opposite the loquacious Richard, and the implications are abundantly clear: “The balance of political power here lies with the silent Bolingbroke, not with Richard's verbal dexterity.”⁷ Despite the overwhelming weakness of his position, Richard insists on prolonging the situation with long speeches which seek to invest the abdication with the quality of a planned theatrical. Richard attempts to stage the actual transference of power; and uses an elaborate metaphor to describe the action:

Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here, cousin,
On this side my hand, and on that side yours.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water.
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

(181-88)

Not surprisingly, Bolingbroke will only take part in Richard's “scene” by silently offering to seize the crown. Bolingbroke wants no part of Richard's rhetoric. His terse reply, “I thought you had been willing to resign” (188), reveals his discomfort and impatience with Richard's desire to talk his way through the deposition. Bolingbroke will only participate in silence, for his strength lies in silence as much as Richard's weakness is revealed by language. Richard continues to describe the “undoing” of himself while “the usurper stands looking on in contempt and silent strength at Richard's diminishing stature.”⁸ When Richard asks, “What more remains?” (21), Bolingbroke lets Northumberland take control of the deposition proceedings, choosing once again to remain silent. Northumberland again speaks on Bolingbroke's behalf, ordering Richard to read the articles of self-incrimination. When Richard appeals for sympathy by asking:

Must I do so? And must I ravel out
My weaved-up follies? Gentle Northumberland
If thy offenses were upon record,
Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop,
To read a lecture of them,

(227-31)

Northumberland curtly replies, “My lord, dispatch, read o'er these articles” (242). Bolingbroke has been silent for more than sixty lines and chooses to remain mute while Richard and Northumberland argue. As he did before Flint Castle, Bolingbroke chooses silence so as not to appear too eager to seize the crown. His strength is his silence, and he possesses enough political acumen to realize that it is best to let others do his talking for him. In this scene, Richard must again talk to Bolingbroke through Northumberland, and Bolingbroke is made all the stronger, and even regal, by his silent control of events.

When men choose silence, it is often a means to an end rather than an end in itself as the passive resignation of women's silence often implies. Male characters, like Bolingbroke, choose to be silent because their best interests are better served by silence than by speech. In fact, their silence may even encourage the speaker to continue talking. For example, in 1 Henry IV, Northumberland silently witnesses the increasingly bitter argument between his son, Hotspur, and the King. The argument concerns Hotspur's refusal to turn over his prisoners to the King unless the King will ransom Mortimer. The King, of course, will never ransom Mortimer because Mortimer was named by Richard as heir to the throne which Henry now occupies. Northumberland understands the sensitivity of the issue, but makes no attempt to intervene and prevent his son from enraging the King. Northumberland's silence, in fact, encourages Hotspur to continue to argue his point which only increases the hostility between the King and Hotspur. Northumberland's silence is a deliberate effort to create animosity towards the King in Hotspur's mind. Given Hotspur's impetuous nature and Henry's sensitivity about Mortimer, Northumberland need do little more than remain silent. His lack of intervention exacerbates Hotspur's hatred for the “canker Bolingbroke” and suggests that Northumberland may have learned a thing or two about the positive aspect of silence from Bolingbroke.

Northumberland, of course, has a vested interest in allowing the conflict to develop between Hotspur and the King, and he chooses silence as a means of achieving that end. Perhaps Northumberland's silent encouragement of Hotspur is not fully appreciated until later when we realize how persuasive Northumberland's silence has been to encourage Hotspur. In Coriolanus the mute presence of Aufidius, while Volumnia pleads with her son to spare Rome, has a similar effect on the characters onstage. Like Northumberland, Aufidius uses silence to control the action and encourage the speakers to continue their argument.

In the beginning of the scene, Coriolanus and Aufidius discuss their plans to lay siege to Rome (V,3,1-21). Volumnia enters with Virgilia, Coriolanus's son Marcius, and Valeria to appeal to Coriolanus. As we hear the pleas of Coriolanus's family, Aufidius's silent presence reminds us that the hero's decision is a political one which involves an entire empire and should not be made for reasons of family and love. Although Aufidius's mute presence tells us that the decision should be based on larger considerations, Coriolanus nonetheless relents to the pleas of his family. Coriolanus's decision to spare Rome is revealed by Shakespeare's explicit stage direction, “holds her [Volumnia] by the hand, silent” (V,3,182), a silence which expresses his resignation to the demands of family and a decision based on emotion instead of honor. Although we are moved by Coriolanus's wordless capitulation, it is on the face of the silent Aufidius that we must see Coriolanus's eventual destruction. Without Aufidius onstage, the scene would become a private encounter between a man and his family. But Shakespeare is interested in portraying more than a man yielding to the wishes of his family. Aufidius's silent presence reminds us that every action of men of power and importance contains consequences beyond the personal, and these consequences are written on the silent face of Aufidius.⁹

The silence of characters like Northumberland or Bolingbroke enables them to realize their goals without incriminating themselves by speaking. Aufidius achieves his intention without uttering a word, and his silent presence reflects his satisfaction. Of course, these characters ultimately make their intentions clear through speech, but it is in their silence that we realize their victory over the speaking characters. In Othello, Shakespeare endows the silences of Iago with many of the qualities we have observed—scheming, power, encouragement, and grim satisfaction—as well as a few others to present a living incarnation of evil. Iago's silences are not ambiguous because he reveals so much of his character and intentions through his soliloquies. Yet, as Iago's planned revenge progresses, he is able to say less and less. Thus, his success is measured by his ability to keep silent and observe the speaking characters behaving as he planned in situations he creates. Iago is a master puppeteer who silently observes his figures perform as if he were pulling the strings.

Iago's desire to exert silent control is evident in the first scene of the play. The very first action Iago engineers, Roderigo's waking of Brabantio with the news of Desdemona's marriage to Othello, demonstrates his desire to be silent and let other characters do the talking for him. Throughout the scene Iago seeks to maintain an inconspicuous and anonymous position, as he instructs Roderigo about the kind of speech necessary to rouse Brabantio:

… with a timorous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.

(I,1,72-74)

Roderigo's effort, however, is a weak, “What ho, Brabantio! Signor Brabantio, ho,” and Iago must lend more emphatic support:

Awake! What, ho, Brabantio! Thieves! Thieves!
Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!
Thieves! Thieves!

(75-78)

Iago's outburst suffices to bring Brabantio to his window, “What is the reason for this terrible summons? / What is the matter there?” (79-80). Once again Roderigo is inept at verbally creating the desired sense of alarm, “Signor, is all your family within,” and Iago reluctantly, but forcibly, speaks for his puppet: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram, / Is tupping your white ewe, Arise, arise!” (81, 85-86). Iago falls silent, perhaps because he assumes Roderigo can effectively continue the dialogue, but Roderigo is too timid and Iago must once more break his silence. His words are coarse and to the point:

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.

(107-10)

When Brabantio decides to leave his house, Iago must make a hurried exit. Although Iago has successfully carried out his intent, he has had to speak more than he would have liked to exact his revenge. Iago would have preferred to remain silent, but Roderigo's failure to speak the appropriately inciteful words forces Iago to break his silence and speak for his puppet.

In the following two scenes, Iago silently observes Othello and tries to discern the most efficient course of revenge. The dialogue of the two scenes (I,2 and 3) focuses our attention on Othello, his relationship to the Venetian state and his love for Desdemona, and we may tend to ignore Iago's silent presence. But as M. R. Ridley reminds us, about Iago's revenge:

We know so well the catastrophe in which Iago's plot results that we are apt carelessly to assume that he intended this result from the outset. He intended nothing of the kind. He is not a long-term strategist, but a superbly skillful and opportunist tactician.¹⁰

In this case, overfamiliarity with the play tends to obscure our response to Iago's maneuvering. We cannot forget that his plan is engendered in stages, and the first stage is his silent observation of the Moor during which Iago searches for ways to feed his revenge. In Act I, scene 2, Iago mutely witnesses Othello successfully defend himself against the outraged Brabantio. However, Othello proves too controlled, too prepossessing to be attacked successfully. Even Brabantio's remark about Othello's “sooty bosom” draws no response from the Moor, and Iago must wait until Brabantio urges his case before the Venetian council to discover how to effect his revenge.

Iago's silent observation is rewarded in Act I, scene 3 as he watches Othello and Desdemona profess their love for each other. By the end of the scene, Iago realizes that the mutual love of the couple must be the base on which he will construct his plan for revenge:

Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now:
To get his place, and to plume up my will
In double knavery. How? How? Let's see,
After some time, to abuse Othello's ears
That he is too familiar with his wife.

(381-85)

Iago's plan does not come to him all at once (encouraging Cassio to drunkenness and taking the handkerchief from Emilia are impromptu decisions), and we should realize that among the audience who witness the initial display of love between Othello and Desdemona stands the silent Iago. The plot which will ultimately destroy Othello and Desdemona is silently germinating in Iago's mind.

Similarly, in Act II, scene 1, the reunion of Othello and Desdemona on Cyprus is charged with an ominous tone because of Iago's silent presence. Despite the joy verbally expressed by the newly married couple, we realize that their happiness will be short-lived. Because we are aware of Iago's plan, his silent presence undercuts the tender devotion of Othello and Desdemona. Iago's silence causes us to see their relationship from the villain's point of view, and the silence creates suspense as we wonder exactly how and when Iago's destruction will commence.

Iago's silence contains a certain magnetism which neither audience nor Othello can ignore. Indeed, Iago's silence has a way of drawing Othello's attention, a quality which is evident in the scene in which Othello enters to stop the fight between Cassio and Montano. The entire episode is engineered by Iago; when Othello enters, Iago pretends as if the whole thing is incomprehensible to him. Iago stands by silently until Othello forces the Ancient to break his silence:

                              What is the matter masters?
Honest Iago, that looks dead with grieving,
Speak. Who began this?

(II,3,174-76)

In this instance, Iago uses his silence to suggest a reluctance to speak and incriminate others. He appears embarrassed that the brawl took place and that Othello had to intervene. The silence, however much it attracts Othello, contains other meanings for the audience. Here the silence begins to exhibit the kind of control over people and events that Iago seeks. Although Iago must speak to Roderigo, Cassio, and Montano in order to plant the seed for the brawl, his silence after the fight indicates his victory over the speaking characters.

Once again, in Act III, scene 3, Iago stands aside in silent victory as the words of the speaking characters prove their undoing and Iago's continually rising power. As Desdemona pleads with Othello for Cassio's reinstatement, the expression on Iago's face must register extreme satisfaction. The more Desdemona innocently insists that Othello “name the time” (62) for Cassio's reinstatement, the more anguished Othello becomes and the more gratified Iago must be. For Iago, silence is power and his increasing silences throughout the play are a monitor of his growing control over the destiny of the speakers. Yet Iago's silence reveals more than just power. It shows that he cannot be traced to the evil because the silence leaves behind no evidence of wrongdoing.

It is a content and seemingly unstoppable Iago who silently observes the ocular proof of his revenge at work in Act IV, scene 1 when Othello strikes Desdemona. Lodovico, newly arrived from Venice, interprets Othello's action as a confrontation between the Moor and Desdemona, and is justifiably surprised at Othello's conduct:

                                                                                                                                  Is this the nature
Whom passion could not shake? Whose solid virtue
The shot of accident nor dart of chance
Could neither graze nor pierce?

(263-66)

The audience, however, is aware that the action is a result of the confrontation between Othello and Iago and that Othello's striking of Desdemona is a sign that Iago has won. Thus Iago can stand silently “watching his handiwork take its effect.”¹¹ While Lodovico may express surprise over Othello's action—“What, strike his wife?” (270)—the silence of Iago confirms the inevitability of Othello's fatal destiny.

In the final scene, Othello confronts the silent Iago. Although Iago's guilt is clear and he is now a prisoner of the Venetian state, his silence implies that his evil, not the goodness of the other characters, has triumphed. When Othello asks, “Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil / Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body,” Iago defiantly replies, “Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak a word” (300-303). Iago's self-imposed silence indicates his hatred for Othello, and, more significantly, his contempt for society. By relinquishing the basic human activity of speech, Iago creates an insurmountable distance between himself and society. Iago's promise not to communicate—despite threats of torture—makes the evil he represents terrifying because there is no hope that his actions could ever be explained. Iago is the most ominous of villains, one whose wickedness may never be understood. At the conclusions of at least three of Shakespeare's other tragedies—Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear—there is the suggestion that the surviving characters have learned something from the ordeals of the protagonists or that there is some hope for the future. At the end of Othello, however, there is no indication of a better world to come. At the end, the silent Iago is even allowed the luxury of watching Othello kill himself. All that remains for the surviving characters is to appropriate Othello's “fortunes,” return to Venice, and “to the state / This heavy act with heavy heart relate” (369-70). Although Iago will be tortured, his silent presence among the dead victims of his villainy chillingly suggests that evil can triumph over good. Iago's satisfied silence further suggests that we may never understand why such destructive malice is part of some people.

The silence of men usually suggests action or a plan for action, and their silence means the opposite of the silence of women which often implies passive or at times forced acceptance. Quite often, men choose silence as a means to achieve their objectives, but women usually have silence “thrust upon them” because of traditional social or dramatic expectations. In spite of the lack of choices that a woman's silence implies, her silence often reveals admirable human qualities such as devotion, forgiveness, mutuality, and fidelity. On the other hand, the silence of men is, at best, ambivalent, but more often than not, their silence can suggest power, earnestness, and self-confidence or even cunning, deceit, and unmitigated evil.

Notes

1. Angela Pitt, Shakespeare's Women (Totowa: Barnes and Noble, 1981), pp. 90-92.

2. Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950), p. 605.

3. According to D. M. Cohen this uncharacteristic silence of Shylock's serves to humanize the character. “Ironically, it is not in his pleadings or self-justifications that Shylock becomes a sympathetic figure, but in his still and silent transformation from a crowing blood-hungry monster into a quiescent victim whose fate lies in the hands of those he had attempted to destroy.” “The Jew and Shylock,” in Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1981), p. 59.

4. In “Silence on the Shakespearean Stage” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1974), Bruce Thomas Sajdak illustrates a notable exception from 1 Henry VI: “in three consecutive scenes in the heart of the play (III, 1 - III, 3), the audience sees both English and French leaders [the Dauphin and Henry] in helpless silence. Sajdak views Henry's silences throughout the trilogy as characteristic of his impotence as a ruler—Henry “appears silent and helpless when he should be most vocal in defense of his own position and the security of his realm,” pp. 170-71.

5. Ann Barton, “Shakespeare and the Limits of Language,” Shakespeare Survey 24 (1971), 22.

6. Jean E. Howard, Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration: Stage Technique and Audience Response (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984), p. 96.

7. Barton, “Shakespeare and the Limits of Language,” p. 21.

8. John L. Styan, Shakespeare's Stagecraft (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), p. 106.

9. “In such a scene, Shakespeare's visual imagination tells him that the character who is dumb can contribute as much as the one who gives utterance,” Styan, Shakespeare's Stagecraft, p. 108.

10. M. R. Ridley, ed., Othello (New York: Methuen, 1965), p. xi.

11. John L. Styan, Drama, Stage and Audience (Cambridge: University Press, 1975), p. 57.