William Shakespeare
The Main Characters
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 Othello: a black army general in the service of the Duke of Venice
 Desdemona: Othello's wife, daughter of Brabantio
 Iago: Othello's ensign (standard-bearer) thought to be a friend of Othello's
 Emilia: Iago's wife, companion to Desdemona
 Cassio: Othello's lieutenant
 Bianca: in love with Cassio
 Brabantio: A Venetian senator, father of Desdemona
 Roderigo: A Venetian gentleman, in love with Desdemona
Symbolic Geography
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 Turkey (Turks/Moors)
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Un-Christian – “infidels”
Tricky (war tactics) – seen as sneaky
Barbarous, monstrous – use of power without morality
Source of disorder and destructiveness
 Venice
 Idealized city
 Christian stronghold
 Wealth, trade, political cunning, good government, achievement of social harmony through law
 Cyprus
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Border land between Venice and Turkey
Outpost – not strongly defended
Island nation – isolated by a stormy sea
Passions are closer to the surface
Map
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Venice
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 Elizabethans saw the Italians as wicked, murderous, and of loose
morals.
 To portray wickedness - playwrights often created Italian characters causing
problems in England, or set the plays in Italy
 Venetian women were rumored to be very beautiful, and very interested in making
love
 Venetian men were considered hot-tempered, aggressive, and easily jealous
 Iago is a Spanish name (Italian form is Giacomo)
 Most evil character gets a Spanish name (probably because Spain was England's
worst enemy)
 True evil, according to the Elizabethans, came from Spain
Themes
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 Jealousy
 Jealousy can be fueled by mere circumstantial evidence and can destroy lives.
 Iago uses jealousy against Othello yet jealousy is likely the source of Iago's hatred in the first
place
 Takes many forms- from sexual suspicion to professional competition
 Always destructive
 Race
 Othello is one of the first black heroes in English literature
 Military general -risen to a position of power and influence
 Status as a black-skinned foreigner in Venice marks him as an outside and exposes him to some
pretty overt racism
 In Shakespeare's England, black people were considered exotic rarities
 They were commonly feared as dangerous, threatening figures, sexually unrestrained and primitive
 On stage, black people were often stereotyped as villains
 Gender
Themes
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 Antagonistic view
 Unmarried women are regarded as their fathers' property
 Most male characters assume that all Venetian women are inherently promiscuous,
which explains why female sexuality is a huge threat to men in the play.
 Sex
 Impossible to discuss gender and sexuality without considering race
 several characters in the play, including Othello, believe that black men sexually contaminate
white women, which may partially explain why Othello sees his wife as soiled
 Common 16th Century anxieties about miscegenation (interracial sex and marriage)
 Possible for Iago to so easily manipulate Othello into believing his wife is having an affair
 Portrayal of homoerotic desire a factor in Iago's plot to destroy Othello and
Desdemona
 Marriage
Themes
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 Portrayal is bleak
 Desdemona's father sees her elopement as a kind of theft of his personal property
 Desdemona and Emilia both unfairly accused of infidelity
 Manipulation
 Iago – literature’s most impressive master of deception
 Plots with consummate sophistication- carefully manipulating Othello Understanding of
the human psyche is phenomenal
 Ability to orchestrate a complicated interweaving of pre-planned scenarios
 Iago's deception is potent because of his patience, his cleverness, and what seems to be
his intrinsic love of elegant manipulation
 Appearance and reality Iago fools everyone in the play into believing he's
honest
 Warfare
Themes
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 Protagonist is a military general- war is always hovering in the background
 Only actual battle the play promises is avoided, thanks to bad weather
 The real battleground is the mind
 Many critics read it as an extended war allegory;
 Possible to see Iago's machinations as the strategic planning of a general, individual victories as minor
battles, and the three resulting deaths the casualties of psychological combat
 Also - relationship between masculine identity, war, and sexuality
 Hate
 Villain is motivated by a hatred that seems to elude any reasonable definition
 Iago's hatred seems out of proportion with the reasons he gives for it
 Iago's loathing has been famously called a "motiveless malignancy" that redefines our
understanding of hatred, making it seem a self-propelling passion rather than the consequence
of any particular action.
 Identity
Themes
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 Factors that play an important role in the formations of one's identity – race,
gender, social status, family relationships, military service, etc.
 How an individual's sense of identity shapes his or her actions
 Other/Outsider
 Hero is an outsider - one who doesn't quite belong in the society in which he lives
 Stands apart from the beginning
 From another race and another country
Symbols/Motifs and Imagery
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 Keep on the look out for the use of these symbols/motifs and
the imagery:
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Handkerchief
The word “honest” or “honesty”
War
Gardens
Willow trees
Animals
Candle
Lit Terms
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 Double Entendre: a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways
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Example: "for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon" – Romeo and Juliet
 Pun: a play on words
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Example: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man” – Romeo and Juliet
 Allusion: a passing reference, without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place, or event, or
to another literary work or passage
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Example: “Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?” - Macbeth
 Metaphor: a word or expression that in literal usage denotes one kind of thing is applied to a distinctly different
kind of thing, without asserting a comparison
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Example: “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? /Thou art more lovely and more temperate” – Sonnet 18
 Simile: a comparison between two distinctly different things explicitly indicated by the words “like” or “as”
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Example: Pity is “like a naked newborn babe.” - Macbeth
 Synecdoche (sin-eck-doe-key): a part of something used to signify the whole
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Example: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!” – Julius Caesar
More Lit Terms
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 Metonymy: the literal term for one thing applied to another with which it has become closely associated
because of a recurrent relation in common experience
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Example: “the crown” = a king
 Personification: either an inanimate object of an abstract concept is spoken of as though it were endowed with
life or with human attributes or feelings
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Example: “The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night” – Romeo and Juliet
 Antithesis: contrary ideas expressed in a balanced sentence
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Example: “My only love sprung from my only hate” – Romeo and Juliet
 Oxymoron: a paradoxical utterance that conjoins two terms in that in ordinary usage are contraries
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Example: “Parting is such sweet sorrow” – Romeo and Juliet
 Paradox: a statement which seems on its face to be logically contradictory or absurd, yet turns out to be
interpretable in a way that makes sense
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Example: “One fire burns out another’s burning, / One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.” – Romeo and Juliet