History and English Literature A-Level Notes

Genre, Language, Form and Structure

• Tragic drama (dramatic play), therefore focus should be on the use of; dramatic irony, emotive language, asides, soliloquies
• These invite the audience to reflect upon the character's actions
• Tragic protagonist sacrificed himself for the common man like ourselves
• Therefore, we feel such sympathy and fear for such events
• The use of 'comedy' to heighten tragedy
• Audience can identify the dramatic irony and mockery

• Psychological links to Iago's personality
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder: 'a grandiose sense of self-importance and entitlement', 'exploitative' with a 'lack of empathy'
• Antisocial Personality Disorder: 'frequently deceitful and manipulative in order to gain personal profit or pleasure'
• Malcontent and need for revenge for not being promoted
• Original story of 'Othello' is actually from Cinthio's collection, 'A Moorish Captain', but Shakespeare made several tweaks
• 'The Three Apples' in 'Thousand and One Nights'
• Perhaps Shakespeare was influenced by this since in this text the Persian king marries but later discovers her infidelity and decides to execute her

Critics

• P. Robeson: Othello is "a tragedy of racial conflict"
• F.R. Leavis: "Iago is not much more than a necessary piece of dramatic mechanism"
• R. Gibson: Othello "proved a significant symbol in the struggle for black emancipation"

Act and Scene Summaries

Act 1

Scene 1: Iago and Roderigo stir things for Othello, they speak rubbish to Brabantio regarding Othello being involved with his daughter, Desdemona

Scene 2: Othello's first appearance, proves himself noble and valiant

Scene 3: Brabantio appeals Duke's opinion for situation. Desdemona and Othello defend their love for each other. Iago and Roderigo's plan fails. Duke wishes for Othello to fight the war. Othello requests for permission to take Desdemona with him.

Act 2

Scene 1: They arrive in Cyprus. Petty conversations between Iago, Emilia, Desdemona and Cassio.

Scene 2: Othello celebrates success of war and makes a wedding feast too

Scene 3: Iago's plan to demote Cassio by making Cassio drink. Cassio's drunken state.

Act 3

Scene 1: Cassio wants to reconcile with Othello, uses musicians and requests Emilia for help to speak to Desdemona regarding his position (as Iago advised him to)

Scene 2: Othello gives Iago letters for pilot to take to ship

Scene 3: Cassio seeks Desdemona's help. Desdemona talks to Othello. Iago insinuates ideas and creates doubt in Othello of his wife. Iago's duplicitous nature is key. Handkerchief is in Iago's hands. Othello has doubts about marriage and begins to loathe Desdemona based on what Iago has told him.

Scene 4: Othello tests Desdemona's loyalty. Desdemona naively presses on Cassio's case. Othello's doubts are consolidated by the loss of the handkerchief (even though he told her to leave it on the floor and then Emilia took it, giving it to Iago...)

Act 4

Scene 1: Othello falls in a trance. Iago's revenge flourishes. Othello made cuckold. Iago makes Othello observe Cassio and 'Desdemona' (actually Bianca). Othello succumbs to Iago's plans. Othello plans to murder Desdemona in 'the bed she hath contaminated'. Lodovico and Desdemona arrive. Othello strikes Desdemona in front of Lodovico and Iago insinuates to Lodovico that he was wrong about Othello all along and that he is a changed person.

Scene 2: Othello confronts Emilia. Emilia backs Desdemona. Othello accuses Desdemona for being unfaithful. Iago tells Roderigo to attack Cassio.

Scene 3: Desdemona and Emilia talk, 'willow song'. Desdemona speaks to Emilia of husbands.

Act 5

Scene 1: Roderigo attacks Cassio. Creates a scene. Iago hopes for his plans to work

Scene 2: Othello murders Desdemona. Emilia defends Desdemona. Othello's 'anagnorisis'. Emilia confronts Iago and criticises him for his acts and is stabbed by him. Othello's pride retaining speech before killing himself. Iago no longer talks.

Is Othello truly valiant, virtuous and noble?

Othello is a valiant, virtuous and noble general

• His first appearance to the audience most certainly is virtuous, valiant and noble!
• Act 1, Scene 2: In Venice, Brabantio tries to battle against Othello for taking his daughter
• "Let him do his spite: my services which I have done the signory, shall out-tongue his complaints"
• "You shall command with years than with your weapons" - wants a fair battle against Brabantio (since he's of old age, obviously Othello is going to smack him)
• He is also "hotly called for" - he is an important figure, someone others look up to
• Act 1, Scene 3: Brabantio appeals to the Duke of Venice regarding the scenario, Othello defends himself and gives Desdemona a voice.
• Othello is accused by Brabantio by using black magic and other kinds of sorcery to have wooed Desdemona but Othello explains his story telling as "this only is the witchcraft I have used"
• "Let her have your voice"
• "If you do find me foul in her report, the trust, the office I do hold of you not only take away, but let your sentence even fall upon my life"
• "I do agnize a natural and prompt alacrity I find in hardness" - modesty/ humble
• Othello has acquired his status by fetching his "life and being [...] from men of royal siege"

Othello isn't, he is just an arrogant, jealous and flawed Moor

• The services Othello has done "shall out-tongue his complaints", arrogance?
• Othello can't separate work from private life - role as military official vs husband
• "Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee; and when I love thee not, chaos is come again"
• Prioritises 'love' over work, even though he went to Cyprus for the purpose of winning the war... (not quite a good idea Othello)
• Insecure and doubts a lot
• "Why did I marry?"
• "O curse of marriage"
• "Haply, for I am black [...] for I am declined into the vale of years"
• Just accepts "honest" Iago's insinuations rather than confronting his own wife properly
• "She deceives me past thought"
• "I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her"
• "Lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again"
• "The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave, some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow" - Emilia
• "Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men"
• "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul - let me not name it to you, you chaste stars"
• How can Othello be virtuous after murdering his own wife with his own hands?!
• Ultimately, Othello doesn't really care about Desdemona but himself, his pride and status
• "farewell the tranquil mind"
• "O I have lost my reputation"
• "Othello's occupation's gone"
• "A horned man's a monster and a beast" - made a cuckold
• "One that loved not wisely, but too well; of one, not easily jealous, but being wrought perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe"

Is Iago the villain of the play?

Reasons why Iago is "a notorious villain" - Montano

• Jealousy (to fuel his villainy)
• "A great arithmetician [...] mere prattle without practice is all his soldiership"
• "I am worth no worse a place"
• "Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards"
• Revenge and Hatred
• "I hate the Moor"
• "My medicine, work!"
• "I'll pour this pestilence into his ear"
• "With as little a web as this will I ensnare a great a fly as Cassio"
• "Look on the tragic loading of this bed. This is thy work." - Lodovico
• Manipulation
• "Look to your wife; observe her with with Cassio"
• "I hope you will consider what is spoke comes from my love"
• "She did deceive her father, marrying you; and when she seemed to shake, and fear your looks, she loved them most."
• "To fall in love with what she feared to look on"
• "Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated."
• Duplicity
• "I follow him to serve my turn upon him"
• "I am not what I am"
• "By Janus, I think no."
• "I would not have your free and noble nature, out of self-bounty, be abused."
• "You told a lie, an odious, damned lie: upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie." - Emilia
• "Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?" - Othello

• Without a 'villain' or 'tool', the tragedy wouldn't have continued with irreversible events resulting in the tragic protagonist's downfall

Iago is "honest" and not much of a villain

• "I am very villain else"
• "I told him what I thought, and told no more than what he found himself was apt and true"
• Iago insinuated ideas and creates doubts, although he didn't assert anything he said directly
• Involvement in crime
• Othello smothers Desdemona (despite Iago suggesting for him to smother her)
• Blame is on Othello's "green-eyed monster" of jealousy
• Uses Roderigo to attack Cassio
• "Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners"
• Iago only "supplied" and "planted" ideas in Othello's mind
• Othello took the will as "it is the cause" for him to throw away his "pearl"

Are females repressed in 'Othello'?

• Emilia is lustful for her husband, Iago
• Takes the handkerchief as he demanded her to (in hope for a sexy time)
• Desdemona is repressed under Othello
• She is silenced by him when he is angry (situated in Cyprus)
• Desdemona as a Venetian is repressed by Iago due to her ethnicity
• Venetian women are known to be promiscuous (or was, back then) and therefore Iago used it to manipulate Othello into believing she slept with Cassio
• Bianca is presented as a prostitute, submissive towards Cassio and chases him
• Both Emilia and Desdemona are confined to the domestic setting

No, Desdemona and Emilia have a voice! They are strong independent women!

• Desdemona is representative of female voice in 'Othello'
• Desdemona argues with Iago of gender politics
• Iago states "you are pictures out of doors, bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens" and that women are solely to "suckle fools and chronicle small beer"
• Emilia defends Desdemona, yelling at Othello
• "O the more angel she, and you the black devil"
• "This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven than thou wast worthy her"
• Emilia saying that Othello wasn't worthy enough for Desdemona
• Emilia also curses her husband after discovering his villainous acts, someone who she is supposed to remain submissive and obedient to...
• "If he say so, may his pernicious soul rot half a grain a day! He lies to th'heart"
• Iago tells her to shut up, but Emilia says "I will not charm my tongue, I am bound to speak" (GO ON EMILIA!!!)
• Iago tells her to go home but instead Emilia continues to yell about Iago and his crimes

Themes (the other ones I didn't talk about..)

• Race and skin colour
• "If virtue no delighted beauty lack, your son-in-law is far more fair than black" - Duke
• "O I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial!"
• "Her name that was as fresh as Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black as mine own face"
• Love
• "She'd come again, and with a greedy ear devour up my discourse"
• "She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her, that she did pity them"
• Was their love even true love if Desdemona only loved Othello based on the stories he told?
• Othello came to love Desdemona because she pitied him? Maybe he just needed a companion to understand his circumstances, given he was a black Moor facing racial criticisms during his times.
• "Here's my husband, and so much duty as my mother showed to you preferring you before her father, so much I challenge that I may profess due to the Moor my lord."
• But this is the key idea that Iago uses to manipulate Othello!!!
• (There is also religion but I don't really care for it, feel free if you would like to research more into it though.)

Key Quotation

• Iago's villainy (good quotes to remember!)
• "For my sport and profit"
• "Practising upon his peace and quiet"
• "My natures plague to spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy shapes faults that are not"
• "He holds me well; the better shall my purpose work on him"
• "Turn her virtue into pitch"
• "Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners" "plant" "set" "weed up" "supply it" "distract it"
• This is a good quotation because Iago talks as if he is some sort of God (think Garden of Eden) and he thinks he has the right to 'plant' doubts and 'supply' ideas to pour 'pestilence into [Othello's] ear'
• "Poison his delight"
• "Abuse Othello's ear"
• "Smooth dispose"
• "Diet my revenge"
• "I put the Moor at least into a jealous so strong that judgement cannot cure"
• "Enmesh them all"
• Description of Desdemona
• "Lawful prize"
• "Moth of peace"
• "Divine Desdemona"
• "She will sing the savageness out of a bear"
• "Heavenly true"
• Other quotes that I can't categorise
• "Ingredience is a devil"
• "It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on"
• "Thou hast practised on her with foul charms, abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals that weakens motions"

Key Tips to Remember for the Exam

• With regards to the first question (which is an extract question) ensure that you relate the extract to the genre of 'tragedy' as well as the whole play
• What this means is that the examiner wants you to use your brain and to see how a specific part of the play can provide hidden meanings/ messages/ ideas to portray the significance of 'tragedy' throughout the whole play
• So make sure you include different parts of the play, not just focus on the extract (although pick out content from the extract to develop further ideas)
• The second question is another question on Othello except it will be a statement where you'll have to agree or disagree with. Whilst it says something like 'to what extent do you agree', it is obvious they want you to agree with the statement BUT high achievers will pick out other ideas that will dispute the statement and therefore put across a balanced discussion before coming to a conclusion of whether or not they ultimately agree or disagree with the statement