Explore Shakespeare’s presentation of the character Othello in Othello

Introduction

• Thesis = Shakespeare presents Othello as a complex and ultimately tragic hero whose identity is shaped by his status as an outsider and a celebrated military leader

• Through Othello’s gradual psychological disintegration, Shakespeare explores themes of jealousy, race and manipulation

Othello as an respected military hero

AO1

• ‘my services which I have done the Signiory/ Shall out tongue his complaints’

• ‘our great captain’, ‘valiant Othello’ ‘brave othello

• ‘my parts, my title, and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly’

• “she loved me for the dangers I had passed” “this tale would win my daughter too”

AO2

• Othello demonstrates calm self-assurance and faith in his reputation, believing his military success will protect him.

• rule of three reinforces his confidence in his character and this ultimately shows his fatal flaw within his character, an arrogance

AO3

• In Renaissance Venice and Jacobean England, military prowess was highly valued, and heroic generals like Othello were often celebrated despite social prejudice

AO4 + AO5

• Leavis ‘Othello’s self pride becomes the hub of his tragedy’

• Leavis contends that Othello’s flaw also his egotistical need to maintain an idealised image of himself as noble and heroic

Othello as an outsider

AO1 + AO2 = animalistic imagery + semantic field

• Iago dehumanises Othello with the racist rhetoric of a ‘lascivious Moor’, describing him with the bestial lusts of ‘an old black ram is tupping your white ewe’

• to Shakespeare’s contemporary audience the adjective ‘black’ also refers to morality by drawing attention to Othello’s colour, Iago emphasises his apparent evil nature

• "Lascivious Moor” plays on racist stereotypes of Black men as hypersexual and dangerous + ‘practiser of inhibited arts’

• “the devil” “Barbary horse” “nephews neigh to you” = animalistic metaphor, creating an imagery of him as non-human and depicting the mixing of races as an obscene interspecies relationship

• “the beast with two backs”

• contrasts description with other characters

AO3

• the bestial language that is used to describe Othello would have had particular resonance for Shakespeare’s audience

• the Great Chain of Being was a hierarchal Christian structure which ranked all beings, and animals were even lower than the lowliest of humans

• Elizabethan views = black often connoted moral corruption which links to the some Christian beliefs in the Mark of Cain being black skin

• links to popular renaissance belief in geohumoralism, which linked psychology to the climate or geography - used to justify white supremacy

• Elizabethan England had fears about witchcraft and demonic imagery

AO4 + AO5

• Newman notes the white male characters feel threatened by the “power and potency of a different monstrous sexuality” symbolised by othello

• this suggest rhat the fears against black men and prejudice ideas make Othello’s character monstrous, establishing him as an outsider

victim of the destructive power of jealousy - Othello’s psychological turmoil

AO1 + AO2

• Othello’s language has completely changed using vulgarities such as ‘whore’ and ‘villainous’ to describe his wife

• displays the shift from his perception of Desdemona being a loving wife, to an ‘excellent wretch’ capable of being deceitful and corrupt

• personification of jealousy as a ‘green eyed monster which doth mocks the meat it feeds on” displays jealousy as a physical and dangerous threat that should be taken heed from

• further heightens the tragedy for the audience sees how he is tragically unable to separate the truth from lies

• “farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!! = repetition signifies the end of his peace and the beginning of his descent into jealousy + personification

• symbolism of the handkerchief = progress from Othello’s love to jealousy - sign of Othello’s love but manipulated to represent her unfaithfulness

• “a jealousy so string that judgement cannot cure” = metaphor for medicine to the “poison”

• “it is a monster begot upon itself, born on itself” = Emilia maintains the association of jealousy with the monstrous; it is not just a hamartia specific to Othello but is a self-invented plague causing pain and destruction.

AO3

• In Renaissance tragedy, jealousy was viewed as a consuming, irrational passion linked to the imbalance of bodily humours

• Othello’s descent reflects both personal vulnerability and societal anxieties about male honour, cuckoldry, and control over female sexuality

• Shakespeare’s depiction draws on the stereotype that African men are inherently jealous

• links to popular renaissance belief in geohumoralism, which linked psychology to the climate or geography - used to justify white supremacy

AO4 + AO5

• Loomba “Othello’s jealousy is both a product of his insecurity as a Black outsider and a patriarchal obsession with female fidelity.”