ENG 2DP
An Introduction to Othello
SHAKESPEARE AND HIS TIMES
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England during the English Renaissance of 1500 –
1650, a period of vast and rapid change throughout Europe. The average person’s view of the universe,
of God and the relationship of God and humanity, of the Church and the role of religion in everyday life,
of the government and the rights and obligations of the monarchy were all ideas that were evolving.
Much of the philosophical, political, and economic transformation in England was due to the growing
number of large cities, particularly in the port areas; a shift from a feudalism to nationalism that allowed
Elizabethan men to develop their own heroic qualities and gentlemanly characteristics; and a break with
the power of the Roman Catholic Church that, in turn, allowed for the secularization of education and
the arts. However, in spite of the changes in England, many social conventions persisted:
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Marriages were arranged, usually for wealth;
Women had a lower social status than men;
Social position was a natural consequence of birth;
There was a proper order within all things. People were concerned with the order of things and
believed that in life there was a “great chain of being.” When everything was in its proper
position, there was harmony. When the order was broken, everything was upset and
everyone suffered;
The Crusades and explorations of Columbus etc., exposed the relatively isolated English to races
they did not know exactly how to interact with.
While a large part of William Shakespeare’s life would mirror many middle-class Englishmen in the late
1500s, Shakespeare’s life as an actor, director, and writer in the theater districts of London makes him
one of literary history’s most famous men. Shakespeare is responsible for 37 plays and hundreds of
poems in his short 20-year writing career.
SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS
Shakespeare’s plays are generally categorized in one of the three areas: tragedies, comedies, and
histories. While his plays follow a five-act format, the dramatic structure of each type of play differs
slightly. Because Othello is a tragedy, we will focus on the dramatic structure of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
If a person were to read Shakespeare’s works in their entirety, he or she would notice that they all
revolve around one common theme: disorder. In each of Shakespeare’s plays, one must consider how
disorder is represented in that play, how order is restored over the course of the events, and what the
effect of this new order is. As is typical in a five-act play, the action moves from the exposition (usually
used to establish that at one point in the play’s events there was social order), through rising action,
conflict, and the climax of the play, through the falling action and resolution. However, the resolution of
Shakespeare’s tragedies is different from the celebratory atmosphere that signals the end of his
comedies. In a tragedy, the play ends with the death of the main character, who has spent the entire
play trying to gain control of the conflict that he himself has created. The character who delivers the last
line in a Shakespearean tragedy is the person who will restore the shattered order.
ENG 2DP
An Introduction to Othello
FEATURES OF SHAKESPEARE’S USE OF LANGUAGE
Blank Verse:
Shakespeare’s essential pattern in his plays is blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter).
Therefore, whenever a reader notices a change in this pattern (a change in rhythm from iambic to
trochaic, a shift in meter from pentameter to tetrameter, or a shift from poetry to prose)there is a
reason for the change.
With the change, Shakespeare is creating a mood, establishing character … something.
Be aware of shifts in language like this. For example:
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Othello’s terse lines as jealousy consumes him (specifically in Act III);
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Iago’s use of varied rhyme and rhythm in his soliloquies (Act II, Scene I, 295–321);
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Desdemona’s song as she realizes she is going to die (Act IV, Scene III).
Figurative Language (especially simile and metaphor):
Shakespeare’s characters often speak in similes and metaphors—to expand ideas and amplify imagery.
Be certain not to miss the “like” or “as” or the text will indeed seem incomprehensible.
For example, in Act I, Scene I, Iago describes the relationship between Othello and Desdemona in less
than polite terms:
“Zounds, sir, you’re robb’d; for shame, put on your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.”
There are two metaphors in this brief, 8-line passage:
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Iago is speaking about Othello and Desdemona. Neither are animals, and yet, Iago refers to
Othello as an old black ram and Desdemona as a white ewe. Iago is highlighting the colors of
their skin, but he is also suggesting the animalistic nature of their relationship.
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In the second metaphor, Iago is referring to Othello as a devil. He is implying that Othello is
doing something evil by being with Brabantio’s daughter.
Notice the nature or quality of the simile/metaphor. Often this will be a clue to how one character feels
about another or how we are to feel about the character.
For example, in the passage above, the audience is clear about how Iago feels about Othello. Every
image of Othello that Iago has created is negative. Throughout the play, the use of the word “devil” will
vary from person to person. To understand the nature of the changing relationships, it will be important
to trace the use of certain images and words throughout the play.
Motifs:
Notice how Shakespeare repeats (or repeats and develops) certain themes or phrases:
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animals,
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jealousy,
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sight and darkness,
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the handkerchief,
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magic,
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evil and the devil.
ENG 2DP
An Introduction to Othello
DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS AND AUTHOR’S TECHNIQUES
Dramatic Devices:
A soliloquy is a monologue. The character is alone on-stage. It is a device the playwright uses to give the
audience insight into the character ’s thoughts and emotions.
Shakespeare uses soliloquies to allow the audience to understand Iago’s motivations in his plot against
Othello.
The aside is another device used by the playwright to give the audience insight into the character. Here
the character is speaking either to himself or directly to the audience. There are other characters
onstage who, by convention, do not hear the aside.
A foil is a character who highlights or emphasizes certain traits of the main character by contrasting
them (see Practice Free Response Question #6).
In Othello, Shakespeare uses Emilia to serve as a foil to Desdemona. Emilia’s independence in love and
marriage and her negative views about relationships between men and women are contrasted with
Desdemona’s integrity and honesty in her relationship with Othello.
An allusion is an indirect reference to another event, person, or work with which the writer assumes the
reader is familiar.
Shakespeare uses allusions as techniques for establishing character, building theme, and setting mood.
In Othello, there are allusions to Greek and Roman mythology, Roman history, and the Bible.
One also cannot discuss Elizabethan tragedy without a discussion of the tragic hero (see below).
Finally, there can be no drama at all without conflict … In Othello, the primary conflict is external in
Iago’s plot to ruin Othello. However, Othello’s internal conflict between his pride and wanting to save
his reputation is what drives the action and is Othello’s eventual tragic flaw.
DYNAMIC AND STATIC CHARACTERS
Othello is a strong example of a dynamic character. At the beginning of the play he is a courageous
Venetian soldier who is well respected by those in Venice. His reputation as a man of honor drives him
to his own ruin as he is manipulated by Iago. As Iago attempts to cloud Othello’s trust of his friend
Cassio and wife Desdemona, Othello becomes enraged with jealousy. By the end of the play, Othello
Is blinded by his own jealousy and eventually kills his wife and himself, losing everything he loves and his
reputation at the same time.
Iago, on the other hand is a static character. From the beginning of the play the audience is witness to
his corrupt character and his evil plan to destroy Othello and Cassio. Throughout the play, Iago never
ventures from his path.
ENG 2DP
An Introduction to Othello
THE TRAGIC HERO
The tragic hero, according to Aristotle, was a man (god, demi-god, hero, high-ranking official) who rose
to a high position and then fell from that high position—usually to utter death and desolation. Two
forces seem equally powerful in classical tragedy, the tragic hero’s tragic flaw (or hamartia), and fate.
Some tragic heroes clearly bring about their own downfall, as in the case of Creon in Antigone whose
downfall is due to his hubris (excessive pride)—he believes his Law holds precedence over the gods’
sense of Right.
Other tragic heroes seem more to be pawns of Fate, like Oedipus, who has done everything in his power
(as had his parents before him) to prevent the fatal prophesy from coming to pass that he would murder
his father and marry his mother. It is in the very act of trying to avoid destiny that the prophesy is
fulfilled.
By the Renaissance, however, people generally felt themselves to be less pawns of fate and more in
control of their own destinies. The Elizabethan tragic hero, therefore, is much more often responsible
for his own downfall. This “waste of human potential,” as it were, seems to be much more tragic to the
Elizabethans than the vagaries of fate.
BACKGROUND FOR OTHELLO
Othello differs from Shakespeare’s other tragedies. Typically, Shakespeare’s tragedies employ subplots
to the main tragic plot. For example, in Macbeth the tragic plot is best characterized by Macbeth’s
struggle between his ambition and his sense of what is right and wrong; the subplot in Macbeth is
represented in the conflict Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have developed between their evil and the best
interests of the nation. Oppositely, Othello is a tightly-written play. There is not a secondary plot, but
only a primary plot with a villain (Iago) who is responsible for the downfall of the tragic hero (Othello).
Othello: A Cultural and Social Context
William Shakespeare’s Othello is set during the late 16th century, a time period which held many
customs and beliefs different from those we hold today. In order to fully appreciate and understand the
play these cultural and social contexts must be taken into account.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MOORS
Othello is subtitled, “The Moor of Venice.” The play begins in Venice, but the majority of the play takes
place on the small island of Cyprus, just south of Greece
The word “Moor” comes from Mauri, the name of an old tribe in the area of present-day Morocco in
northern Africa. Their northern-African kingdom was known as Mauretania. The descendants of the
Mauri became Muslims very early in Islamic history.
ENG 2DP
An Introduction to Othello
In the year 711, these Islamic Moors conquered Spain. They ruled lands in North Africa, Spain, and
Portugal for the next seven hundred years (a coalition of Christian kings drove the Moors from Central
Spain in 1212, but the Moorish Kingdom of Granada thrived for almost another three hundered years).
In 1492, the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to Christian Spain (united by the marriage
of Queen Isabella of Spain and King Ferdinand of Portugal), in an agreement called “The Capitulation of
Granada.” By 1502, the remaining Muslims had been forced either to leave Spain or convert to
Christianity. The converts were known as moriscos.
Most of the expelled moriscos went to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Others became pirates. Many
passed themselves off as Gypsies and migrated to other countries in Europe. Between the years 1609
and 1614, all remaining Moors were systematically hunted down and expelled from the few regions in
Spain where they remained.
The first recorded performance of Othello was in 1604, during the time when Christian European
tolerance of Muslims was greatly strained.
When Shakespeare identifies his tragic hero as a Moor, he clearly wants to establish that Othello is a
descendent of these North-African/Spanish Muslims, whose not-too-distant ancestors were exiled. This
could explain why Othello finds himself in Venice, Italy.
Yet it is significant to remember that Othello is the tragic hero of the play, not the villain.
ENG 2DP
An Introduction to Othello
Name: _______________________________________________
Instructions:
Read the information package provided as an Introduction to William Shakespeare’s play Othello and
respond to the following questions.
Questions:
Shakespeare and his Plays
1. When and where was William Shakespeare born?
2. Describe the Renaissance period. What aspects of society changed? How would this have
influenced a playwright like William Shakespeare? Explain with reference to information
provided.
3. Identify the three main categories of Shakespeare’s plays? Name a minimum of one from each
category. What type of play is Othello?
4. Identify and describe each part of a typical five-act play.
5. What distinguishes a tragedy from a comedy? Explain why this is necessary based on the
common theme of a tragedy mentioned in the reading.
Shakespearean Language
6. What is Shakespeare general pattern of language in his plays? What does a change in language
indicate? Provide specific examples given from Othello.
7. What kind of figurative language is used in Shakespeare’s plays and why? Provide examples.
8. What is a motif?
9. Define the following dramatic devices:
a) Act
b) Allusion
c) Aside
d) Foil
e) Tragedy; Tragic Flaw; Tragic hero
f) Soliloquy
Characters
10. What is a dynamic character? How is Othello a dynamic character? Provide examples.
11. What is a static character? How is Iago a static character?
12. Define the tragic hero according to Aristotle. What are the two powerful forces that contribute
to a tragic hero?
Background to Othello
13. How does Othello differ from other Shakespearian tragedies? Explain.
14. Who are the moors? Why would this be important information to know before beginning the
play? Explain.
15. The final comment is that “Othello is the tragic hero. . . not the villain”. Explain how this is the
case based on what you have read in the introduction.