The Trial

The classroom--always a primary-colored melange of visual inside jokes--looks odder than usual. A third of the desks are pushed up in two rows against the windows, another third piled in the back, and the remaining third arranged towards the front of the room and bearing yellow placards that say things like "Othello," "Iago," and "Prosecution."  I'm leaning on a sarong-draped AV cart, clad in a black graduation robe.  


I'm always a little conscious of "what someone would think" if they walked into my classroom at any given moment.  Usually, the worst that could be said is that instead of restlessly pacing the floor I am sitting cross-legged on a table at the front.  (The most energetic and perfect teachers are always on the move; I prefer to hone Zen-like stillness, hoping it'll rub off.)  The scene today would be madness to an outsider, and I'm torn between hoping some supervisor shows up so I can explain, and praying that no one bothers us today so we can have our imaginative fun in peace.


"Students!  Listen up!"


"Use the--what's it called--gavel," suggests a student.


I pound the red plastic handles of a pair of scissors on the top of the cart.  "Order!  Order in the court!" It makes a hollow metallic sound, not the satisfying click of wood on wood that a real, non-scissor gavel might provide.


"You're not even supposed to be here yet," L the Bailiff reminds me.  She's sitting on a tall stool to the left of my cart.  She was absent for the day of trial preparation, so I've given her a scripted role.  "I'm supposed to call you in."


"Oh, right."  I walk out the door and return as she intones the orange-highlighted words on the paper.


"All rise for the Honorable Judge D, Duchess of Venice!"


This is fifth period, the third mock trial of the day.  I had hoped to have time to give both a final test and do this trial with my ninth grade English classes, but the short days between Thanksgiving and Christmas break ran out, and we had time for only one or the other.  In an effort at democracy I allowed students to vote on which final assessment they preferred.  One voted for the test, and one had their trial cancelled because half of them were absent, for various reasons, on the day of trial prep.  That left three trials, this the last one.


The Question: Clearly, Othello is guilty of the death of his wife, Desdemona, but is it entirely his fault?


There are many holes in this trial.  First, the defendant is dead at the end of Othello, so his  hypothetical trial requires a hypothetical failed suicide.  Second, since he is so clearly guilty I have doubts about whether or not the degree of fault even matters in a legal sense.  Our entire trial, in fact, is built around idioms and procedures that we've learned mostly from movies.


Still, it's turned out to be an excellent assessment of knowledge of the play.  The prosecutors and defenders have had to study Othello's character and history in order to craft their arguments, have had to line up their information in the most compelling order.  The witnesses had to reread the play to create their testimony, remembering what their character could have seen and known, trying to guess what information would be asked of them.  The jury, replete with opinions of their own, have had to write statements for both sides of the case in order to prevent bias.  As far as finals go, this one is as interesting and summative as they come.


"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," the speaker for the defense team begins after the prosecution's opening statement, "Othello has had a difficult past.  He was a soldier and a slave.  He fought in wars and was put in prison.  After all of this, the one thing he loved, the one thing he trusted--his wife--he thought she betrayed him.  This messed up his mental state, and with that kind of manipulation from Iago he isn't completely at fault."


The next day, I'll hear almost the exact words chillingly echoed in by the defenders of Naveed Haq, currently being tried for opening fire on the Seattle Jewish Federation three summers ago.  They'll repeat that the accused believed his actions were completely right and therefore could not have been fully sane.


This defense doesn't hold true in ninth grade.  The jury comes to a unanimous conclusion after only a few minutes of deliberation: no matter what voices led him to his crime, Othello must be held fully responsible for his own actions.


It can be tempting to question the relevancy of reading a text that is four centuries old, especially in a class where the anti-magic words are "it's just a book."  And yet as we finish this one I'm again struck by the importance of the issues we're discussing.  Responsibility, revenge, jealousy.  As much as Shakespeare may have hoped that these would "go out of style," they never have.  We're still trying our real Othellos in court, still trying to drown out the voices of real Iagos and decipher the truth in lives that are seldom as symmetrical or organized as a Shakespearean tragedy.