Act 3 scene 4
How will you address the passage in your answer?
AO2 Shakespeare uses Emilia as a foil to
Desdemona (line 25-27)
Emilia: Is he not jealous?
Desdemona: Who he?
How does she contrast with Desdemona?
How would you use this point – for or against the statement?
Shakespeare uses stagecraft and an ‘aside’ to
show Othello’s jealousy…..
• ‘Well my good lady. [aside] O hardness to dissemble!
How does Othello’s sharing with the audience that he is finding it
difficult to hide his true feelings make us feel?
Would you use this for or against the statement?
Shakespeare uses symbolism to show
Othello’s suspicions
Othello says that Desdemona’s hands are
‘Hot, hot , and moist’ (35)
‘A young and sweating devil here’
Othello’s misinterpretation of Desdemona’s hands is shown through
heat imagery suggesting her promiscuity, but what is the effect on our
feelings towards Othello for using it?
Look at 2.1240 Iago about Des with Cassio ‘ didst thou not see her
paddle with the palm of his hand?’
How would you use this in reply to the statement?
Shakespeare shows Othello as deceptive as he
stages a cold to enable him to ask for the
handkerchief
Othello : ‘I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me; / Lend me thy
handkerchief’
How does Shakespeare use dramatic irony here?
How would the audience feel about this deception?
What has the handkerchief become?
The deteriorating relationship and distrust is
shown through disjointed, clipped dialogue
between Othello and Desdemona
‘Here my lord.
O:That which I gave you
I have it not about me
O: Not?’
Who is deceiving who?
What earlier dialogue could you cross-reference to which showed
greater harmony and unity? How was the syntax different then?
How would you use this to answer the question?
Shakespeare reflects contemporary racial prejudice that
black people practise witchcraft by showing Othello’s
belief that….
‘There’s magic in the web of it’
Would ‘subdue my father entirely to her love’
‘to lose’t or give’t away were such perdition’ (perdition = damnation)
This is structurally significant – what earlier episode would you refer
back to in order to show character development?
Would you use this for or against the statement?
Shakespeare uses Othello’s language to reveal
Iago’s corruption and Othello’s increasing
violence?
O: ‘He? Wherefore?
D: Why do you speak so startlingly and rash?
And then
O: The handkerchief! (87)
O: The handkerchief! (88)
O: The handkerchief! (92)
Zounds! (93) (cross-reference D ‘Heaven bless us! Line 77)
How would you use this to forward your argument?
Genre – look at the handout
How does this scene signal a change in the love between Othello and
Desdemona? Where does this scene come in the whole play structure?
How does it show the development of the tragic hero and the emerging
tragic flaw?
How does the genre of tragedy shape our response to Desdemona and
our response to Othello
Setting
• Where does this passage take place?
• What is the significance of this setting?
• How would you use this information to address the statement?
Work for Thursday (essay will be on Monday
th
30 50 minutes timed)
• Read the handouts given today and identify useful ideas/quotes for your essay. Highlight/
annotate. Ensure this is complete for Thursday.
• Start planning how you will use the passage in Monday’s timed essay
• Look at previous essays /exemplars. Think about how you may approach the answer in terms of
‘different interpretations’.
• How will your order those different interpretations so that you get a logical, well signposted and
progressive argument ending in a conclusion?
• What will this work look like? – flow chart of topic sentences in order / spider diagram with
numbered points/ bullet pointed plan / quotes to learn for each paragraph ( from elsewhere in
the text – it is closed book) Ensure this ‘plan in progress’ is brought to the lesson on Thursday.
• Vocabulary wall of all AO2 terms you know you will be writing about – allow you to mentally tick
them off as you use them
• Vocabulary wall of sophisticated vocabulary for this essay – see earlier essays/ literary criticism
• On Thursday, we will look at quotes from Acts 4 and 5, and the handout you will have prepared
for homework.