Junior Honors English
Ms. Lee-DuBon
Essay Topics: Othello
Choose one of the essay topics below and write a complete response to it (3 -5 pages, doublespaced). Support your essay with evidence from the text, including a minimum of one quotation
per body paragraph. Be sure to write a thesis statement that is complex and arguable.
1. The three women characters in Othello are very different characters; Desdemona, Emilia
and the much lesser character Bianca can be seen to represent women in different ways:
the bride, the wife, and the whore. Compare and contrast Shakespeare’s development of
these women, paying careful attention to the scene between Desdemona and Emilia in
Act IV, scene 3, and Emilia’s and Desdemona’s lines in Act V, sc. 2. What conclusions
can you draw about Shakespeare’s view of women from your study of these characters?
You might want to focus your essay on women’s power.
2. Iago is a villain’s villain; he does not enforce his will through brute force, but rather
through carefully planned deception, skillful manipulation and superb acting. He is also
willing to sacrifice everyone around him, including his own wife. Iago claims to want
revenge upon Othello for bypassing him and promoting Cassio to lieutenant; also there is
a vague rumor that Othello has slept with Emilia, Iago’s wife. Yet, when he talks about
his plan, Iago describes it as a “monstrous birth” that he must bring to light (Act I, sc. l.
447). Is Iago the embodiment of pure evil or is he a man whose own insecurity guides
him in making the choices he does?
3. Othello is an interesting tragic hero. He is presented to us as a formidable military
commander, yet we see him only a few times in this role. By Act III, scene 3, he begins
to break down under Iago’s lies and becomes a jealous, weak, easily-manipulated man.
Does his closing speech in Act V shed any light on his character and redeem him as a
tragic hero?
4. One cannot ignore race in Othello; Shakespeare could have easily written this same play
with a white tragic hero. Othello is a black man married to a white woman, a valued
military leader, and a dangerously jealous husband. How does Othello’s identity as an
African, a black man operating in a white society, play a role in his tragic fall?
Due Dates
Tuesday, Nov. 13: thesis statement due (complete and polished, not a rough draft). Typed and
double-spaced, please.
Friday, Nov. 16: Essay due. Typed, doubled-spaced, titled. Please submit a hard copy directly
to me and submit the essay to Turnitin.com.