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Extended Essay
Othello
Lesson 9
LQ: Can I explore
Shakespeare’s development
of Othello?
Form: play, drama, genre, tragedy, hubris, hamartia,
Contexts: historical, social, cultural, race, religion, gender, Venice, Cyprus, attitude,
audiences
Structure, language, juxtaposition, split lines, pentameter, relationships, love, fraternity
How many journeys
relate to Othello the
man?
Venice
Cyprus
Emilia
Obedience to
Iago
Anger and hostility
towards Iago
Othello
Trust
Jealousy
Ext: Can you use evidence from throughout the play to support
your ideas?
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Starter:
Some critics describe
Othello as a play of
journeys, for
example
Setting
LQ: Can I explore Shakespeare’s development of Othello?
Excellent Progress: you will explore structure, form,
language, themes and contexts, commenting on specific
aspects with reference to how characters could be
interpreted.
Good Progress: you will show awareness of structure,
form, language, themes and contexts, and comment on
specific aspects with reference to how characters could be
interpreted
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Outstanding Progress: you will confidently explore and
evaluate through detailed and sophisticated critical
analysis how writers use these aspects to create meaning.
LQ: Can I explore Shakespeare’s development of Othello?
The Big Picture
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
LQ: Can I explore Shakespeare’s development of Othello?
Excellent Progress: you will explore structure, form,
language, themes and contexts, commenting on specific
aspects with reference to how characters could be
interpreted.
Good Progress: you will show awareness of structure,
form, language, themes and contexts, and comment on
specific aspects with reference to how characters could be
interpreted
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Outstanding Progress: you will confidently explore through
detailed and sophisticated critical analysis how writers use
these aspects to create characters and meaning.
Form: play, drama, genre, tragedy, hubris, hamartia,
Contexts: historical, social, cultural, race, religion, gender, Venice, Cyprus, attitude,
audiences
Structure, language, juxtaposition, split lines, pentameter, relationships, love, fraternity
This is the first chance for the audience to see into his mind and find out
what he thinks about Iago’s ‘honest’ insinuations.
In pairs, take responsibility for one of the
sections:
• What do you find interesting in what
he says, how he might say it, and how
it relates to what has gone before (in
terms of content, attitude and
language/imagery)?
LQ: Can I explore Shakespeare’s development of Othello?
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Read through Othello’s soliloquy from Act III (lines 262-283, in sections on
your handout).
Form: play, drama, genre, tragedy, hubris, hamartia,
Contexts: historical, social, cultural, race, religion, gender, Venice, Cyprus, attitude,
audiences
Structure, language, juxtaposition, split lines, pentameter, relationships, love, fraternity
Read through the extract your group has been given
(either from Act 1 Scene 3, or Act 5 Scene 2).
Annotate your extract to show:
• What Shakespeare's language reveals about Othello’s
character
• How the language has changed in the course of the
play.
Read over the
annotated
example from
Act 4 Scene 1 to
help
LQ: Can I explore Shakespeare’s development of Othello?
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Closer analysis: Othello’s language and state of mind.
Form: play, drama, genre, tragedy, hubris, hamartia,
Contexts: historical, social, cultural, race, religion, gender, Venice, Cyprus, attitude,
audiences
Structure, language, juxtaposition, split lines, pentameter, relationships, love, fraternity
Present your findings
to another group.
Annotate the other
speech as the other
group
presents to you.
How much progress
have you made?
Excellent Progress: you will explore structure,
form, language, themes and contexts,
commenting on specific aspects with reference
to how characters could be interpreted.
Good Progress: you will show awareness of
structure, form, language, themes and
contexts, and comment on specific aspects
with reference to how characters could be
interpreted
LQ: Can I explore Shakespeare’s development of Othello?
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Feedback
Outstanding Progress: you will confidently
explore through detailed and sophisticated
critical analysis how writers use these aspects
to create characters and meaning.
Plenary:
Do you agree or disagree with these readings? Use evidence
to support your answers.
Ext: Can you use evidence from
throughout the play to support your
ideas?
Othello’s tragedy is that he lives
according to a set of stories through
which he interprets the world – an
ideology – but it is a world that has
been superseded. He cannot see that
this is so, and the contradictions
within his ideology destroy him. He is
living the life of a chivalric warrior in a
world run by money and self-interest.
Sean McEvoy
Extended Essay Text 1: Othello
Othello’s nature is all of one piece.
His trust, where he trusts is
absolute. Hesitation is almost
impossible to him. He is extremely
self reliant, and decides and acts
instantaneously. If stirred to
indignation…he answers with one
lightning stroke. Love, if he loves,
must be to him the heaven where
either he must live or bear no life.
If such a passion as jealousy seizes
him, it will swell into an
incontrollable flood.
A.C. Bradley
He really is, beyond any question, the
nobly massive man of action, the
captain of men, he sees himself as
being…in short, a habit of selfapproving, self-dramatisation is an
essential element in Othello’s makeup.
F.R. Leavis