explore to what extent shakespeare presents othello as a domestic tragedy

introduction

• Shakespeare presents Othello as a domestic tragedy to an extent.

• While ‘Othello’ conforms to the thematic conventions by focusing on the broken psyche and the private sphere, Shakespeare simultaneously subverts this by placing the action within a military and a public-marital context, reflecting the importance of military prowess and reputation within Elizabethan society

• Perhaps Shakespeare aims to show how the actions within the public sphere can influence the actions within the private sphere

EXTRA = juxtaposition between domesticity and international affairs provides a background for the problems experience

argument = public influence the private - Military context of cyprus and venice mirrors and influences the events of the play

AO1

• ‘you must therefore be conetet to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boistorous expedition’

• venice

  • ‘I love thee Desdemona’ ‘I love the Moor’

  • ‘my heart is subdued to the very quality of my lord’

  • ‘I saw Othello’s visage in his mind’

  • ‘she loved me for the danger I had passed and I loved her that she did pity them’

  • ‘she’d come again with greedy ear and devour up my discourse’

• cyprus

  • ‘she must die, else she’ll betray more men’

  • “o curse of marriage that we call these delicate creatures ours and not their appetites”

  • ‘I will chop her into messes! cuckold me!’

  • “whore of Venice” "perjured women” “strumpet” “the cunning whore of Venice” “devil” “subtle whore”

  • “her name that was as fresh as visage is now begrimed and black”

  • ‘thou dost stone my heart

  • ‘rash and most unfortunate man’

AO2

• metaphor

• juxaposition

• simile

• connotations

• iambic pentameter

• parallelism

• plosives

• assonance

• repetition

AO3

• venice

• cyprus

• military reputation within elizabethan society

• significance of the setting

• trade

• religion = christianity vs islam

AO5

• Hadfield called venice a ‘critical utopian space’, a seemingly ideal society where tensions are brewing beneath the surface

• ‘Cyrpus distorts to the point of grotesqueness the norms of civil breeding’ - Catherine Bates

argument = public influence the private - Criticism from the venetian society create insecurities within othello which influence his action within his marriage

AO1

AO2

AO3

• race

• duplicity of women

• great chain of being

• marriage

• reputation

• cuckoldry

• dramatic context

AO5

• Ania Loomba’s argument that the presentation of Othello ‘stands at the complicated crux of contemporary beliefs about black people' and foreigners

argument = just the private - the broken psyche and the shift in othello and desdemona’s marriage

AO1

AO2

AO3

• geohumoralism

• jealousy

• handkerchief

• women and marriage

• cuckoldry

AO5