“I am no strumpet”: the inspiration behind ‘Pale Mistress’
If you speak to most people, the female characters they remember from ‘Othello’ are Desdemona and Emilia. Very few recall Bianca – and yet, she has the dubious distinction of being the only named female character in Shakespeare’s four major tragedies who does not die!
Now, it’s entirely possible Shakespeare intended to kill Bianca off. He leaves her being escorted away by Venetian soldiers after Iago has accused her of complicity in the attempted murder of her lover (or fiancé!), Michael Cassio. Iago tells Bianca, “Come, mistress, you must tell’s another tale.” Within the text, this is taken to imply that Bianca will be tortured until she confesses her role in the plot – which is, of course, entirely of Iago’s own making. However, as a novelist, this felt like an invitation. Just what tale would Bianca tell? What would her story be?
Indra Ové portraying the character Bianca in the
1995 film adaptation of Othello.
My initial inspiration for ‘Pale Mistress’ came during an A Level Literature lesson in 2024. I’d studied the play myself as a teenager, and have taught it multiple times over the years. But the wonderful thing about returning to classic texts again and again, at different stages of my life and with different students in front of me, means that new ideas emerge each time. On this occasion, during a lesson on Act 4 Scene 1, in which Cassio and Iago talk about Bianca behind her back before she storms on stage in a fury, one of my students made the immortal observation, “Cassio’s a bit of a douche, isn’t he?”
Tom Hiddleston performing as Cassio alongside Martina Laird
as Bianca in a 2007 production of Othello
This was the first time I’d taught ‘Othello’ post #MeToo. The first time I’d taught it since ‘gaslighting’ became one of Oxford Dictionary’s buzzwords of 2018, and since Merriam-Webster made it one of their words of the year in 2022. And suddenly I was looking at this play in a very different light.
Cassio’s generally regarded as a chivalrous chap: handsome, noble, much-admired by Venetian society. He’s played by attractive actors – Nathaniel Parker, Jonathan Bailey, Tom Hiddleston. His fate, being gravely injured by Iago and accused of sleeping with Desdemona, is usually interpreted as thoroughly unfair. However, to a modern audience, his behaviour is decidedly two-faced.
On the one hand he describes Desdemona as “the divine Desdemona” and “a maid / That paragons description and wild fame, / One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens”. On the other, he describes Bianca as a “monkey”, a “bauble”, and a “rogue” behind her back, yet to her face calls her “my most fair Bianca” and “my sweet Bianca”. The chivalrous courtier’s mask slips: away from the postures of courtly love performed for and about Desdemona, Cassio reveals himself to be mocking, scornful, even cruel.
Of course, there’s another character in ‘Othello’ who speaks derisively of others behind their backs, then is all charm to their faces. But while Iago is ultimately revealed as a villain and abhorred as a “demi-devil”, Cassio is rewarded with the governorship of Cyprus, and the power to punish Iago as he sees fit. What Shakespeare doesn’t mention is that this also grants Cassio the ability to decide Bianca’s fate.
What would Cassio do, I wondered, to a woman he thought had betrayed him, even conspired to mutilate and murder him? Would he carry out the torture Iago had threatened? Would he put her on trial – perhaps even condemn her to death?
Once I’d started asking this question, I couldn’t stop. Everything about Bianca started to fascinate me: who was she, really? We know very little about her, other than that she must be extremely skilled at embroidery, given that Cassio asks her to “take the work out”, or copy, the fateful handkerchief Iago has planted in his chamber. Iago calls her a whore, but then Iago calls all three female characters in the play a whore, so why do audiences and critics only believe it of Bianca, especially when she herself insists “I am no strumpet, but of life as honest as you that thus abuse me”?
Iago also says in the first scene of the play that Cassio is “a fellow almost damned in a fair wife”, which could either mean Cassio is such a catch he’s bound to marry sooner or later, or that Cassio has a fiancée already. Bianca moves freely about Cyprus, with a degree of confidence and independence that neither Desdemona or Emilia are permitted – was this the freedom of an unmarried woman, or a sex worker? And then her freedom is abruptly, brutally, unjustly curtailed.
My question about what Cassio might do branched out: what would Bianca do to prove her innocence – or get her revenge?
Two years ago, I half-heartedly joked to my A Level students that one day I would write a novel about Bianca, and it would be full of feminist rage! And here we are. As for whether Cassio receives the comeuppance I promised them, you’ll have to read ‘Pale Mistress’ to find out…
Naomi Kelsey
# # #
About the Author
Naomi Kelsey's debut novel, The Burnings, was published by Harper North in 2023, followed by The Darkening Globe in 2025. Her next book, Pale Mistress, a reimagining of Shakespeare's 'Othello', is out now. She is the winner of two Northern Writers’ Awards and of the HWA Dorothy Dunnett Competition 2021. Her fiction has been published in Mslexia magazine and shortlisted for several further awards including the Bridport Prize and the Bristol Prize. She posts about books, history, and the chaos of writing around small children and teaching English on Instagram as @naomikelseybooks and on X as @naomikelsey_ Bluesky @naomikelsey.bsky.social and writes a monthly-ish newsletter on Substack at @naomikelsey
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting