A2

Question 1

🕸️🪰

Answer 1

“With as little a web as this I will ensnare as great a fly as Cassio.”

AO1 - Deception / Manipulation
AO2 - Use of Aside shows Iago’s duplicity/secrecy
- Animal imagery: ‘ensnare’ suggests Cassio’s role as a small pawn
AO3 - Gli Hecatommithi by Cinthio; Shakespeare alters plot by adding characters to expand Iago’s web of influence and depth of manipulation
- GCoB (?) Iago comparing characters to animals/insects suggests his superiority and hubristic attitude
AO5 - His role as the play’s chief humorist allows him to bask in his own superiority (Honigmann)

Question 2

💨🪦

Answer 2

“May the winds blow till they have wakened death”

AO1 - Love / Relationships
AO2 - Imagery of ‘weathering storms’ used to show love/relationships, Othello is challenging nature
AO3 - Shakespeare uses this imagery; typical in Elizabethan era

Question 3

🎶🔨

Answer 3

“O, you are well tuned now! / But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music, / As honest as I am.”

AO1 - Love/Relationships / Iago
AO2 - Musical metaphor suggests Othello and Desdemona’s harmonious relationship
- Dramatic irony: Iago being referred to as honest occurs 49 times, maintaining a sense of irony throughout the play, allowing the audience to be absorbed by Iago’s character and duplicity
AO3 - N/A

Question 4

🪑☠️👤

Answer 4

“Hath leaped into my seat, [the thought whereof] / Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards”

AO1 - Jealousy
AO2 - Euphemism of ‘leaped into my seat’ representing infidelity; ‘seat’ connoting to office and duty, possession, threatened property
- Violent imagery / simile showing Iago’s intensity and anger; emasculated
AO3 - Women in Venice

Question 5

❌

Answer 5

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving.”

AO1 - Reputation / Honour
AO2 - Internal and half rhymes: paradoxical essence about reputation; reputation is a flimsy fabrication
AO3 - Reputation and honour crucial to Elizabethan society; status and religion

Question 6

😡😇

Answer 6

“she is sport for Jove”
“She’s a most exquisite lady”

AO1 - Cassio x Iago / Women
AO2 - Characters act as a foil to one another; binary opposition of views on women
AO3 - Women in Venice