Othello

Seven Deadly Sins• Wrath• Greed• Sloth• Pride• Lust• Envy• Gluttony

Discuss: Which ones do you consider to be the ‘deadliest’?

Why?

• What are the origin of sins?

• Are they relevant today?

• Which are more relevant than others?

Who are the ‘modern day outsiders’?

Who were the ‘outsiders’ of the 16th century?

• Review notes on the summary of ‘Othello’• Review character summaries

Activity: Create a ‘family tree’ showing the relationship between the characters.

Reputation

DISCUSS!!• How do people perceive you? • What is your reputation? • Is your reputation different with different people? • Does your reputation mean a lot to you?• Have you had an experience when you have been

worried that your reputation was damaged? • Did this concern you?• Is one’s reputation important?

• Modern day examples of when a reputation has been tainted?

ReputationAct 2 Sc. 3 lines 245-265

Cassio: Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!

Iago: Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser

Cassio: I will rather sue be to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so light, so drunken and so indiscreet an officer.

• Consider Iago’s and Cassio’s thoughts on reputation.

• Which one do you agree with more? • Write your response – include quotes from the

dialogue.

• What ‘fatal flaw’ is Iago preying in in regards to Desdemona?

Shakespeare’s verse – pg. xx

Blank verse – regular rhythm but does not rhyme

Iambic pentameter – lines are ten syllables long. Each line divided into pairs of syllables

Meter – regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line. Each line can be broken into a unit consisting of two or three syllables.

Feet – the unit of syllables

Writing Task

• Imagine you are Cassio. Write his response to these latest events.

• How does he feel about what he has done, his reputation and his disappointment in himself.

• How does he feel about Iago’s advice about what to do next?

Iago’s thoughts…

• Lines 293 – 305• Lines 314 – 340

What does Iago say to Cassio, and what is he actually thinking?

Find 3-5 quotes from both pieces of dialogue that reveal his thoughts.

Relationships

• Discuss:Do you think that men and women have different roles/behaviours in relationships?

Think of examples. Consider your own experiences, family experiences, examples from other texts, different eras, cultures

Act 4 Scene 3

• What is the symbolism of the ‘willow song’?

• How do Emilia and Desdemona’s views about behaviour in relationships contrast?

• What are your thoughts on their differing opinions?

• How do you think their differing opinions impact the plot of the play? How does it further develop the tragedy of the play?

• Desdemona’s attitude towards her chastity represents what Renaissance males wanted and expected of woman.

• Emilia suggests that the ideal of female chastity is overblown and exaggerated. She gently hints that instead of suffering Othello’s abuse, she could look for happiness elsewhere.

• She believes in reasonable ground between the sexes

• Identify the lines where foreshadowing is evident

• Describe the tone of the scene – use quotes to support your answer

• How is the scene ominous?

Act 5

Scene 2

Yet I’ll not shed her blood,Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,And smooth as monumental alabaster:She must die, else she’ll betray more men.(5.2.3-6)

Read Othello’s opening soliloquy (lines 1-23)

• Look at the repeated use of light and references to Desdemona’s purity

• Write an analysis of this speech. • What is revealed about Othello and his

thoughts? How does he view Desdemona?• Comment on the use of references to light –

what do they symbolise?• Discuss the meaning of the metaphors within

the speech

Act 5 scene 2 Language

• Discuss the fractured and frantic language of lines 30-80. How do these lines add to the ‘tragedy’?

• Notice Othello and Emilia’s use of language as opposites collide poetically to work out the horrible truth of the situation (5.2.126-136)

• Consider Emilia’s repetition of the word ‘husband’. What does this emphasise?

Discuss???

What makes this play a tragedy?

Tragedy

What is Tragedy?

• The term tragedy first applied to describe classical Greek theatre.

• It defines the kind of serious play that deliberately arouses, as Aristotle argued, our ‘pleasure of pity and fear’ for the tragic protagonist.

• This protagonist is neither a complete villain or a saint, but a noble man (or, much less often, a woman) with a mixture of faults and virtues.

• While we are lead to pity him, we also experience fear because we recognise our life could just as easily be destroyed through similar faults as this noble example who is better than we are to begin with.

• When the hero encounters the reversal of fortune followed by catastrophe, partly through his own pride or an error of judgement, Aristotle argued that we experience a pleasurable release of tension, accompanied by a sense of relief that balance has been restored to the world through a cleansing of the fault.

• Shakespearean tragedies do seem to close by bringing to an end disruptive elements that have led to the catastrophe

• There is, however, sometimes a lingering sense that cosmic order has been restored only temporarily.

• Othello – a noble protagonist is undermined by circumstances and some ‘fatal flaw’ in his own personality.

• In Shakespeare’s other great tragedies we could say that for ‘Hamlet’, the fatal flaw is hesitation, for ‘Macbeth’ it is uncontrollable ambition, and for ‘King Lear’, emotional blindness.

• Othello’s fatal flaw is that he has been ‘one that

loved not wisely, but too well’.

THEMES – Sample Mind MapUse the notes provided to develop your own theme diagram

Beginning of passage analysis

In passage one Shakespeare introduces the motif of appearance and reality through the characterisation of Iago. His initial belief that not all masters/can be truly follow’d initiates his deceptiveness that is to follow throughout the rest of the play. Through dramatic irony and foreshadowing, the audience can predict Iago’s actions as he tells Roderigo that while being trimm’d in forms and visages of duty/ [others] keep yet their hearts attending to themselves. Iago’s forthcoming betrayal is further emphasised in his strength of words, In following him, I follow but myself.