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Othello (Characters (Iago (He is the most important character in the play…
Othello
Characters
Iago
He is the most important character in the play by far, he is a master manipulator that bends every character completely to his will. He hatches a plot against Othello out of jealousy and racial hatred and uses Desdemona as his hamartia but also from a place of misogyny.
He is often viewed by critics to be one of Shakespeare's greatest villains and one of literature's greatest villains. His manipulation of all the situations and people to execute his will perfectly combined with his supreme intelligence is what makes his character so enticing.
He uses Roderigo as a bank account and uses Cassio to perfectly make Othello jealous, he plays on people's fears in order to make them act out or regress.
Othello
He is the tragic protagonist that suffers a downfall at the hands of Iago and his hamartia. He is a black man living in the traditional society of Venice and involved in an interracial relationship with a white woman of good status. He is an army general and quite a respected and well spoken man.
Iago convinces him that he is being cuckolded by his wife Desdemona while in Cyprus- he becomes overwhelmingly jealous despite previously stating he'd wait for 'ocular evidence', following the revelation of Desdemona's handkerchief being missing. He becomes more and more violent with her and eventually suffocates her and subsequently kills himself.
He is an important character because he can either be read as subverting the stereotypes of Black people at the time or enforcing it due to his regression at the end. He is often seen as a symbol of the racist society and perhaps Shakespeare's challenge of that.
Desdemona
One of the most important characters in the play and she becomes the tragic victim of the story. Her innocence of the infidelity she is accused of and her subsequent death at the hands of the husband she fought to marry leaves her as a deeply pitied and sympathetic character.
She is a deeply submissive character, even opting to take responsibility for her own death. The nature of her character changes over the course of the play, she begins as a headstrong woman who defends her choices to marry Othello to her father and demands to go to Cyprus with them. However, by the end of the play she is trapped by her own choices and coerced into submission by the man she chose to marry, she is smothered by the demands of proving her fidelity and it eventually kills her as she becomes an object of Othello's obsessive desire and jealousy.
Her acceptance of her death is telling about her character since she knows it is coming and is submissive to that too. Her status as a victim is only exacerbated by the violent actions towards her before her death- it evokes a serious sense of pathos for her,
Emilia
She is Iago's wife and Desdemona's maid. She is completely submissive towards Iago and withstands his constantly ridiculing and violence and misogyny.
We see her be quite cynical about love and life towards Desdemona likely due to the nature of her marriage to Iago but she is not so outspoken elsewhere in other settings, clearly she is only truly comfortable in the presence of other women in the play.
She betrays her husband at the end which would have been completely unusual and against the established views of relationships and the patriarchy, this means she ends up being a morally strong character.
Cassio
He is mainly a puppet in the play, used by Iago to rile up Othello and to inadvertently convince him of Desdemona's infidelity.
His character has certain sexist undertones, especially when considering his treatment of Bianca and his overtly flirtatious manner with Desdemona.
He is described as a 'florentine' and a 'mathematician' Iago's jealousy and anger over Cassio's promotion is one of the main motivation for the events of the play. His character in general but specifically the plan to make him drunkenly fight one of the Cypriot generals acts as a catalyst for the violence of the play and for Iago's plan to be enacted.
Roderigo
Roderigo is a fairly unimportant character apart from his wealth. Iago manipulates him to pay for the expenses of the plan by promising him he can have Desdemona (the woman he loves) after Othello is dead. He thinks he can win her love by sending her gifts which Iago sells for profit. He is submissive to Iago in that he allows himself to be talked around to him plan but also harbours racial hatred against Othello.
Bianca
Not an overly important character, used as a way of perhaps exposing more unsavoury parts of Cassio's character and adds more depth to female characters through her position as a Cypriot prostitute. Her profession as well as her origin leaves her out from the main dialogue of the story.
Key themes
Race
This is arguably the most important theme in the play as almost all conflict stems from the matter of Othello's race or interracial relationship with Desdemona. Most contempt is as a result of racial tensions and leads to Iago's initial jealousy of Othello because of his promotion.
The deeply rooted social tension in Elizabethan society lends nicely to the context of the play, the arc of Othello's character both subverts and fulfils stereotypes of the time and the play acts as rather shrewd social commentary. The actions by and against Othello mainly are as a result of race due to the obvious aesthetic ostracision, this means that race is the ultimate motivator due to ingrained racial biases and therefore acts as a very important theme.
Gender
This is also a prevalent theme in the play due to the misogynistic ways of Iago and later Othello. The patriarchy plays an important role in understanding the place of women, particularly Emilia and how her acts of defiance would have been greatly shocking to an Elizabethan audience. The plot exploiting women paints them ultimately as victims, notably Desdemona, she is antagonised and attacked over the entire play both verbally and physically while simultaneously used as a puppet of Othello's downfall.
The nature of men and women is also an important contrast in the play, with women taking more innocent and loving roles, especially towards each other, while men tend to have more violent, jealous and rivalrous relationships. This contrast between the women and men means that women tend to be used and violated during the play for personal gain, the plot against Othello is just as much against Desdemona but she is innocent of crimes other than perhaps her social transgression of marrying a Black man. Her wealth becomes important here too as her status meant it was a grave fault against her father to do such a thing.
Jealousy
This theme exists within many characters: namely Iago and Othello. Othello is jealous of Cassio as he believes he is having an affair with his wife and Iago is jealous of Othello's position however it is interpreted to be much more about his interracial relationship and to be rooted in racism
Jealousy is often discussed in its capacity to make you regress and its ability to damage or destroy your reputation. Jealousy and hatred go hand-in-hand in this play and they work together to cause most of the actions and violence. Jealousy is why Iago hatches his plan in the first place and why Othello regresses from the well spoken, loving man into the murderous misogynist by the end.
This is a really important theme that documents a lot of the play, mainly existing in the male relationships and the romantic relationships in the play in general. It acts as a key character trait for lots of the male characters in the play and appears to be a trigger for much of the antagonistic motions against Othello.
The nature of jealousy changes over the course of the play, with it simply motivation at the beginning but morphing into an all-consuming and destructive force by the end. It also adds acutely to the sense of tragedy created in the play.
Appearance vs Reality
This is a theme mainly enacted by the play's antagonist Iago, he constantly manipulates situations to play out as he wants them to, to follow the greater plan he hatched from the very first scene. His lies and deceit make him the master manipulator he's infamously known as, the half truths and blatant lies contribute to the greater feeling of dramatic irony existing in the play as we as an audience are the only other person to know what exactly is happening.
He introduces this theme from the beginning when he said 'I am not what I am' immediately foreshadowing the later importance of this theme in the play in that he is a trickster and actually quite an evil character in the way he pits people against each other and themselves for personal gain. He is not honest with anyone in the play, arguably not even himself, and his deceit extends to other characters leaving the line between appearance and reality indubitably blurred.
Good vs Evil
In a sense, this theme manifests in a religious sense, with both Iago and Othello being associated with the devil while Desdemona is with angelic imagery. Thus we see an almost gender divide down the line of good and bad, the men to be presented as forces of evil both against each other and the women, and the women to be seen as innocent victims of male tyranny.
However, there is also the notion of moral good and evil which manifests more precisely between the male characters and the particular regression of Othello's character and whether Iago's actions in doing so are considered evil is entirely dependent on the perspective. Then we're led into the question of whether a Jacobean audience would perhaps see this unveiling of Othello's unhinged jealousy and violence as a sacrifice to society in order to keep the safe.
Key quotes
Act 1:
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"an old black ram is tupping your white ewe"- Iago about Othello and Desdemona, Sc1
"your daughter covered with a Barbary horse"- Iago about Desdemona and Othello, Sc1
"your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs"- Iago about Othello and Desdemona, Sc1
"the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor"- Roderigo about Othello and Desdemona, Sc1
"he tonight hath boarded a land carack"- Iago about Othello and Desdemona, Sc2
"abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals"- Brabantio about Othello and Desdemona, Sc2
"if virtue no delighted beauty lack, your son-in-law is far more fair than black"- Duke about Othello, Sc3
"if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport"- Iago to Roderigo about Othello, Sc3
"I hate the Moor; And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets he's done my office"- Iago about Othello, Sc3
"hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light"- Iago to the audience, Sc3
Act 2:
"the divine Desdemona"..."The riches of the ship is come on shore!"- Cassio about Desdemona, Sc1
"Bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens; Saints in your injuries, devils being offended; Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds"- Iago about women, Sc1
"Do not learn of him Emilia though he be your husband"- Desdemona to Emilia, Sc1
"with as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio"- Iago to the audience, Sc1
"If it were now to die twere now to be most happy; for I fear, my soul hath her content so absolute that not another comfort like to this succeeds in unknown fate"- Othello about Desdmona, Sc1
"her eye must be fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil?"- Iago about Desdemona, Sc1
"a pestilent complete knave, and the woman hath found him already"- Iago about Desdemona and Othello, Sc1
"not today, good Iago; I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking"- Cassio to Iago
"let go, sir, or I'll knock ou o'er the mazard"- Cassio to Montano, Sc3
"Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial"- Cassio to Iago, Sc3
"I think you think I love you"- Iago to Cassio, Sc3
"Our general's wife is now the general"- Iago to Cassio, Sc3
"When devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows, as I do now"- Iago to audience, Sc3
"So I will turn her virtue into pitch, and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all"- Iago to audience, Sc3
Act 3:
"If I have any grace or power to move you his present reconciliation take"- Desdemona to Othello about Cassio, Sc3
"Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee; and when I love thee not, chaos is come again"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc3
"for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty"- Othello to Iago, Sc3
"men should be what they seem"- Iago to Othello, Sc3
"o, beware, my lord, of jealousy: it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on"- Iago to Othello, Sc3
"Wear your eye thus: not jealous nor secure: I would not have your free and noble nature out of self bounty be abused"- Iago to Othello, Sc3
"I do not think but Desdemona's honest"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc3
"this forked plague...I have a pain upon my forehead here"- Othello to Desdemona and Iago, Sc3
"the Moor already changes with my poison: Dangerous conceits are in their nature poisons which at the first are scarce found to distaste, but, with a little act upon the blood, burn like the mines of sulphur"- Iago to the audience, Sc3
"Her name, that was as fresh as Dian's visage is now begrimed and black as mine own face"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc3
"Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on- Behold her topped?"- Iago to Othello about Desdemona, Sc3
"Damn her, lewd minx: O, damn her, damn her!...I will withdraw to furnish me with some swift means of death for the fair devil."- Othello to Iago about Desdemona, Sc3
"here's a young and sweating devil here"- Othello to Desdemona, Sc4
"the handkerchief...the handkerchief...the handkerchief!"- Othello talking to Desdemona and Emilia, Sc4
"they are all but stomachs, and we all but food, they eat us hungerly and when they are full they belch us"- Emilia to Desdemona about men, Sc4
"they are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous for they're jealous: 'tis a monster begot upon itself, born on itself"- Emilia to Desdemona about Othello, Sc4
"how is it with you, my most fair Bianca? I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house"- Cassio to Bianca, Sc4
Act 4:
"First, to be hanged, and then to confess...noses, ears, and lips: is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O devil!"- Othello to Iago Sc1
"A horned man's a monster and a beast"- Othello and Iago, Sc1
"I would have him nine years a-killing. A fine woman, a fair woman, a sweet woman!"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc1
"I will chop her into messes- cuckold me!"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc1
"do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated"- Iago to Othello about Desdemona, Sc1
"Devil! [he strikes her] / (Desdem)I have not deserved this"- Dialogue between Othello and Desdemona, Sc1
"it doth abuse your bosom. if any wretch have put this in your head, let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse"- Emilia to Desdemona, Sc2
"This is a subtle whore, a closet lock and key of villainous secrets; and yet she'll kneel and pray"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc2
"a fixed figure for the time of scorn"- Othello to Desdemona, Sc2
"the fountain from the which my current runs, or else dries up"- Othello to Desdemona, Sc2
"impudent strumpet"- Othello to Desdemona, Sc2
"No as I am a christian. If to preserve this vessel for my lord from any other foul unlawful touch"- Desdemona to Othello, Sc2
"hath she forsook so many noble matches her father ad her country and her friends, to be called a whore? would it not make one weep?"- Emilia to Iago about Desdemona, Sc2
"Ay if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. he sups tonight with a harlotry"- Iago to Roderigo about Cassio's death, Sc2
"Unkindness may do much; and his unkindness may defeat my life, but never taint my love"- Desdemona to Emilia about Othello, Sc2
"even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns- Prithee, unpin me, have grace and favour in them"- Desdemona to Emilia about Othello, Sc3
"if i do die before thee, prithee shroud be in one of those same sheets"- Desdemona to Emilia about her marriage sheets, Sc3
"My mother had a maid called Barbary. She was in love; and he she loved proved mad, and did forsake her. She had a song of 'willow'...she died singing it. That song tonight will not go from my mind"- Desdemona to Emilia, Sc3
"let nobody blame him; his scorn i approve"- Desdemona singing, Sc3
"who would not make her husband a cuckold, to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for't"- Emilia to Desdemona on whether she'd cheat, Sc3
"what is it they do, when they change us for others? is it sport? i think it is. And doth affection breed it? I think it doth...and have we not affections, desires for sport and frailty as men have?"- Emilia to Desdemona on cheating men, Sc3
"the ills we do, their ills instruct us so...(Desdem) not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!"- Dialogue surrounding cheating between Desdemona and Emilia, Sc3
Act 5:
"[Iago from behind strikes at Cassio's legs, and hurries off]"- Sc1
"O brave Iago, honest and just, that hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong"- Othello to Iago, Sc1
"[he stabs Roderigo] O damned Iago! O inhuman dog!"- Iago stabbing Roderigo and his reaction, Sc1
"o notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect who they should be, that have thus mangled you?"- Iago to Bianca, Sc1
"I do suspect this trash to be a party in this injury"- Iago about Bianca, Sc1
"this is the night that that either makes me or fordoes me quite"- Iago to the audience, sc1
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"it is the cause, it is the cause, my soul"- Othello about killing Desdemona, Sc2
"I'll not shed her blood nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow and smooth as monumental alabaster"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc2
"I know not where is that Promethean heat that can thy light relume. When I have plucked the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again"- Othello about his 'duty' to kill Desdemona, Sc2
"O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc2
"for to deny each article with oath cannot remove nor choke the strong conception that i do groan withal. Thou art to die"- Othello to Desdemona, Sc2
"O perjured woman, thou dost stone my heart, and mak'st me call what i intend to do a murder, which i thought a sacrifice."- Othello to Desdemona, Sc2
"I that am cruel am yet merciful"- Othello about himself, Sc2
"O insupportable! O heavy hour! methinks it should be now a huge eclipse of sun and moon and hat th'affrighted glove should yawn at alteration"- Othello after killing Desdemona, Sc2
"She's like a liar gone to burning hell: twas I that killed her"- Othello to Emilia, Sc2
"O, the more angel she, and you the blacker devil"- Emilia to Othello, Sc2
"If heaven would make me such another world of one entire and perfect chrysolite, I'd not have sold her for it"- Othello to Emilia, Sc2
"disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man...thou'rt not such a villain. Speak for my heart is full."- Emilia to Iago, Sc2
"you told a lie, an odious, damned lie; upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!"- Emilia to Iago, Sc2
"[he lunges with a sword at iago, but Montano disarms him. Iago wounds Emilia and escapes]"- Othello attempting to kill Iago, Sc2
"good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak: tis proper I obey him, but not now"- Emilia about Iago to the men of Cyprus, Sc2
"be not afraid, though you do see me weaponed: here is my journey's end, here is my butt and very sea-mark of my utmost sail"- Othello to Gratiano, Sc2
"this look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven and fiends will snatch at it."- Othello to Desdemona's corpse, Sc2
"O cursed cursed slave! Whip me ye devils from the possession of this heavenly sight! blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur, wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire"- Othello about himself, Sc2
"Demand me nothing: what you know, you know; from this time forth, I never will speak word"- Iago to everyone, Sc2
"I have done the state some service and they know't...speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. Then must speak of one that loved not wisely but too well"- Othello about himself to the men left, Sc2
"of one not easily jealous but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme."- Othello about himself, Sc2
"Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe"- Othello about Desdemona, Sc2
"Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took him by the throat the circumcised dog and smote him- thus" [he stabs himself]"- Othello about his actions for the state, Sc2
"look on the tragic loading of this bed; this is thy work.The object poisons sight"- Lodovico to Iago, Sc2
“Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?"- Othello about Iago, Sc2
Context and critics
Critics
AC Bradley: ‘we are shown a thing absolutely evil, and – what is more dreadful still- this absolute evil is united with supreme intellectual power’
‘greatest intensity and subtlety of imagine have gone to his making’
Ania Loomba's critical view is that Desdemona 'flouts the established social hierarchies of complexion to marry a black man'
The critic Dr Johnson said that 'The character of Iago is so well constructed that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised'
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"Othello is predisposed to believing his pronouncements about the inherent duplicity of women"- Ania Loomba
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Ania Loomba insists that Othello ‘should not be read as a patriarchal, authoritative and racist spectacle, nor as a show of female or black superiority’ but be used to ‘examine and dismantle the racism and sexism’ of hegemonic ideologies.
‘Women are seen largely as functions, and trivialized; there is general belief in male right to own women and control them. In this kind of thinking, there is disdain for bonds that do not advance one in the world, for any subordination of self, and for sex.’- Marilyn French
“the Jacobean archetype of the perfect yet paradoxical woman, the virgin mother. The Jacobean ideal of total chastity leaves Desdemona vulnerable to an unforgiving male gaze”- Alexandra Melville.
‘[Desdemona] cannot even conceive of infidelity to a husband; she does not struggle against Othello when he commences to abuse her. To the end she remains submissive, begging Othello to let her live one more night, one more half-hour. Her last words, placing the blame for her death on herself, are self-denying in the extreme: they are the words of a martyr.’ – Marilyn French
"The final blow is as real as the blow it re-enacts, and the histrionic intent symbolically affirms the reality: Othello dies belonging to the world of action in which his true part lay"- F.R. Leavis
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"Othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely because he becomes an agent of misogynistic ones"- Ania Loomba
"It is only Othello's jealousy, not Iago's hatred, that is the real tragedy"- Bonnie Greer
"Othello's love of Desdemona is the love of possession, she is a prize, a spoil of war"- Caryl Phillip
Context
Race
The general opinion on black people was one of contempt, they viewed them as lustful and hyper-sexualised, mainly due to the feeling of racial predation that they would have seen Othello and Desdemona's relationship as.
Othello's position would have been surprising since he was black and it wasn't often that a black man would be appointed to an army general. So rare, it could inspire such jealousy that Iago has.
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The term 'Moor' was used broadly and it is still not known whether it refers to people from Africa or Islamic Arabic inhabitants of North Africa who conquered Spain in the eighth century, however, the true race of Othello is not distinctly relevant since it only serves to be a marker of difference between him and everyone else, such a racial distinction would not have made such a difference as it would today.
Othello only behaves as the stereotype of the lustful, murderous black man when he is corrupted by Iago. Before,he is well spoken and polite, much the opposite of stereotypes of the time.
Othello is a racial ‘outsider’ in Venice but Shakespeare stresses his noble origins and his power and status as a mercenary general.
During the Renaissance many believed black people were fit only to be slaves. Shakespeare subverts this view in his depiction of his noble Moor.
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Elizabethan
Cuckoldry was seen as the ultimate form of humiliation for men since it implied that they didn't have control over their women, which was, due to the patriarchy, the only way to treat your women since they were legally your property if you were a man.
The Patrilineal progression meant that any notion of a woman cheating and not having legitimate children was the ultimate embarrassment for men since they'd be passing all their wealth etc, onto a bastard. This led to very strict and hyper-focused attention on female sexuality and male interactions. The obsession with ensuring female fidelity was of utmost importance and is likely why Othello becomes so angry, not only because he has been betrayed and cheated on but because it implied future infidelity and illegitimacy.
Symbolic setting-
-At the end of the 16th century, Venice was thought to be powerful, well ordered, wealthy and civilised.
- Othello at the start is succeeding in the city- he has managed to overcome his outsider status and attain power and wealth.
- The introduction of Cyprus as a contrast introduces a dangerous other location, far away from order and civilisation.
- Venice might represent the upper classes and white aristocracy watching society be invaded by both people of colour and the lower classes.
- Cyprus might be a metaphor for Desdemona and the Turks being symbolic of Othello.
- Venice is a place of order while Cyrus is a place of disorder, the movement of the setting allows for Iago's plan to be executed.
- Setting represents how the characters are isolated and they can't help what happens to them- emphasises the inevitability of the fate and the ending.
- The Greek goddess of love who was thought to have been born on the west coast of Cyprus. Poets have long celebrated Cyprus as the Island of Venus and therefore the Island of love. Because of this, it can be seen as an ironic setting.
The handkerchief was used as a symbol of wealth and status. It was used as a plot device to show a man being in possession of another woman's handkerchief was a sign of adultery. It began a symbol of love and ended up being one of deceit and betrayal.
A very religious society so the constant allusions to the devil and the supernatural would be greatly effective upon an Elizabethan reader.
Telling lies was considered to be a much worse offence than nowadays. Satan told lies to Eve at the Garden of Eden. This means that Iago's whole plan is what makes him one of the greatest villains in Shakespearean history.
Witch hunting in England began around 40 years before Othello was written, and so Shakespeare would have been very aware of the prevalent belief in witchcraft. People believed that ‘witches’ made pacts with the Devil in order to gain supernatural powers, usually for personal gain, or to get revenge on others.
The willow song is so important because of the symbolism of the tree itself: it is often associated with death and sadness, even being used elsewhere in Shakespeare's work as Ophelia falls from a willow tree to her death. The 'sycamore tree' is also a historical symbol of death but as more of an omen than a sign of grief like the Willow tree.
Gender
Society was patriarchal and women were seen as less intelligent, inferior versions of men. They were also seen as responsible for men's downfall since the Genesis story.
Women have to be virgins before marriage, and were seen as unclean and immoral if they weren't.
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Paradoxically, a strong, female, non-married queen ruled England at the time.
Desdemona's handkerchief was a symbol of not only her status but also of her and othello's love as it was a token given to her while they were 'wooing'
Shakespeare’s positive portrayal of Emilia suggests assertiveness in a woman is not always a threat to patriarchy. Since she is openly cynical and defiant of the Patriarchy to Desdemona however never violates her 'natural' place until she sees it would be a violation of her morals (the end)
Desdemona almost seems to shrink into herself, she is defiant at the start in that she fights her father over Othello and demands to go to Cyprus with them however, as the play goes on she becomes more and more submissive, perhaps the introduction of violence causes her to remember 'her place'
Women's trapped lives would lead them to become closer with other women, and for girl or high status women, the women who work for them specifically eg, Emilia or the Nurse in R+J
Desdemona's character is parallel to Ophelia from Hamlet who are both good, virtuous, obedient but subjected to tragic fates despite it.
Bianca tries to defy the social hierarchy by defending herself against Iago's accusations, however, they do not believe her showing the patriarchy has hegemonic power
Tragedy
Hamartia: Othello's hamartia are numerous, this makes him an easily sympathetic character since it feels as if he's being heavily exploited.
- Desdemona- his love for her is too strong and it eventually ruins them, his love turns easily into jealous possessiveness that kills her.
- Desdemona- in the fact that it is easy for Iago to manipulate her into seeming unfaithful because of her innocent nature and Othello's love for her
- His race- his blackness is one of his hamartia because it becomes very easy to turn people against him from a place of racism. Also because he's likely to have a more difficult story arc to be societally realistic
- his jealousy- his jealousy consumes him and he is unable to escape it and it is what kills both him and Desdemona.
- Being gullible- Iago convinces him easily of Desdemona's supposed infidelity.
Tragic hero:
- Othello embodies the tragic hero because he experiences a tragic downfall where he was once a good and just person of good status and became regressed and lesser.
- critics Crawford and Badger who discuss the idea that Shakespearean tragedies explore “the passion of the hero” as the thing that “finally and certainly destroys the hero”, specifically referring to the character of Othello as an example. This idea of Othello being a perpetuator and cause of his own misery through an internal and inevitable fault may be trying to induce pity and fear in the audience for the tragic protagonist to make the denouement more cathartic and climactic
- In a true tragedy, the hero's death just come about as a result of a personal error or decision- Othello perfectly demonstrates this.
- The tragic hero must commit or mediate a grave act and it's suggested it's against a family member for maximum impact, this is shown when he murders his wife.
Peripeteia:
- It is the reversal of fortune brought about by the tragic hero's fatal flaw.
- Once the transgression is realised, the character enters the stage of recognition and will undergo a reversal of fortune.
- This is when he tells Iago he's going to kill Desdemona in Act 3 since it means he's elected to believe Iago about Desdemona
Anagnorisis:
- Arguably isn't till the end since he doesn't truly understand the weight of his actions till after he's murdered her
Catharsis:
- The feeling the audience feel at the end, the rush of emotions and satisfaction. The audience feels pity and fear at first, only to feel relief and exhilaration at the end through catharsis.
- Mainly feel this after Othello's death and Iago's capture since the tyrants of the play are apprehended.
Tragic Victim:
- Desdemona is the tragic victim since she is completely innocent and is a victim of grave actions at the hands of the husband she transgressed society to be with.
- We feel a great deal of pathos for her over the course of the play, especially when she acquiesces to her death, so we end up feeling more catharsis towards the end when we feel as if her character gets some form of rest through Othello's death.
Dramatic Irony:
- This is created when the audience know more than the characters in the play.
- This is often used in this play through Iago's asides to the audience throughout the play and Othello's mumbling to himself. It is a powerful technique that evokes more feelings from the audience because we almost feel part of the play, Iago's confidants, therefore leading to more powerful catharsis.
- It leaves the audience constantly on edge but also gives them a sense of power through their extra knowledge, perhaps by associating the audience so explicitly with Iago, he makes us question our own views surrounding racism and sexism.