love and betrayal

Question 1

1.1 “an old black ram is tupping your white ewe!”
“making the beast with two backs”

Answer 1

Old =knowing abusing innocence, black = darkness, dirty,race?
Ram = horns like devil and forceful animalistic sex
Tupping = onomatopoeia makes it aggressive and shocking for desdomona.
White ewe = innocent female sheep, pure + white. Docile and easily led.

AO2 - This paints othello to be a beast using rough animal imagery + forceful plosive lang.

Question 2

2.3 IAGO “She’s [desdomona] framed as fruitful as the free element: and then for her to win the moor, weren’t to renounce his baptism…his soul is so enfettered to her love

Answer 2

She is nurturing and gives aid
Othello is a new man, re birthed and so in love with desdomona

Connotations of her enslaving and chaining him to her

Question 3

OTHELLO 1.3? “let him do his spite/… but that I love the gentle desdomona”

Answer 3

• First person to use desdomona’s name.
  He speaks in a measured and controlled way which word shock audiences as the protagonist has been repeatedly insulted in 1.1 unlike other shakespeare plays. AO4
  Othello is self possessed and calm under pressure.
  He is the first male to not refer women as possession and talk about love.

Question 4

1.3 OTHELLO“it is most true; true I have married her.”

Answer 4

AO2 - endstop – using a full stop mid stanza shows a clear definite statement and he is open, raw, honest and calm.

Question 5

1.3 OTHELLO “send for the lady to the sagittary”

Answer 5

Not normal to ask the woman for her input. There is a level of respect proving their love is true.

Question 6

1.3 OTHELLO “she’d [desdomona] come again and with a greedy ear devour up my discourse”

“she loved me for her dangers I had passed and I loved her that she did pity them”

Answer 6

Othello claims desdomona was interested in his life story

Desdomona was flirting with othello and she was hinting, he claims she loved him because she idolised her.

Question 7

2.1 othello “O my fair warrior!”
Desdomona “my dear Othello!”

Answer 7

see each other as equals.
‘Warrior’ says she’s better than a man

AO2 - Fair + warrior juxtapose each other. She is more complex than a normal woman.

TAO2 - hey share a line of blank verse. they mirror each other and feel connected
Othello speaks in a measured and crafted way in blank verse unlike iago in prose and low-minded

Question 8

3.3 OTHELLO “excellent wretch! … but i do love thee! And when i love thee not chaos is come again.”

Answer 8

Oxymoron used to show the confusion othello feels. Negative word in a sexual manner.
Proleptic irony when he doesn’t love her, chaos emerges

Question 9

3.3 “for the fair devil”

Answer 9

AO2 - oxymoron , conflicting emotion. Links to earlier when she was a ‘fair warrior’. Is perception is completely deceived by iagos words

Question 10

3.4
D: “it is not lost, but what an if it were?”
O: “how?”
D: “i say it is not lost”
O: “fetch’t let me see’t”

Answer 10

AO2 - Stichomythia is used. One line at a time. Increases the tension and quickens the pace.

Question 11

3.4 OTHELLO “the handkerchief”

Answer 11

The constant repetition demonstrates othellos attempt to feel rational but he cant, he also interrupts her showing he has lost respect for desdemona.

Question 12

4.1 iago: “will you think so?
Othello: “think so, iago?”

Answer 12

AO2 - Starts act in media res to heighten tension.
AO2 - Hemistichomythia = sharing one line of blank verse. Shows their unity, intuneness + iago has achieved his ultimate goal.
Links back to act 2.1 when othello + desdemona share a line “o my fair warrior…” the harmonious nature of their relationship is gone, replaced with iago.

Question 13

4.1 OTHELLO “Ay, let her rot, and perish…O, the World hath not a sweeter creature”

“But yet the pity of it, iago - o, iago, the pity of it, iago!”

Answer 13

AO2 - Juxtaposition, ‘let her rot and peris’ vs ‘o the world hath not a sweeter creature’ shows he still feels something for her, the drip-feed hasn’t completely drowned him. He is confused and angry

The audience feels for othello sympathy and this indicate that it is a tragedy.

Question 14

4.1 “I will chop her into messes! Cuckold me!”

“Lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again”

Answer 14

Hideous, butchery, savagery.
He is completely changed, not the same moor breaking up fights in act 1.2

he wants to be cuckolded so he can kill her - not something he should want.
Social humiliation of cuckold. Punishment for ruining his rep and cheating on him - death. Patriarchal society.

AO2 - Plosive of ‘b’ emphasise his anger towards desdemona

Question 15

4.1 OTHELLO “devil!”
[striking her]

Answer 15

This is public, once again like their relationship.

AO2 - The pace is unravelling distinct difference in their speech towards each other as desdemona is still niave.
AO3 - Shocking to both elizabethan and modern audiences. The build up of physical plans to hurt her have reached breaking point.

Question 16

4.1 OTHELLO “each drop she [desd.] falls would prove a crocodile”

Answer 16

Crocodile tears symbolise faking the tears, accusing her of being animalistic and fake, trapping him.

Question 17

4.2 “yes, you have seen cassio and … she together”

Answer 17

Has no respect for desdemona, cannot call her desdemona anymore.

Question 18

4.2 “rained…steeped me…a drop of patience… well…fountain”

“The fountain from which my current runs or else dries up - to be discarded hence!”

Answer 18

AO2 - Semantic field of water imagery = symbolises cleanliness, baptism, hygiene. Its also changeable and powerful.

Fountain = desdemona as a symbol of youth, joy and baptism. Now a dried up fountain filled with nastiness and witchcraftry.

Question 19

4.2 “oh thou weed…that the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne’er been born”

Answer 19

AO2 - Juxtaposition of his anger and sadness.
He is calling her a disease but yet beautiful. Painful for audiences to hear. Deterioration of his state of mind

Question 20

4.2 OTHELLO
“Impudent strumpet”

“i cry you mercy then, i took you for that cunning whore of venice that married othello”

Answer 20

Calling her a prostitute
He is disassociating himself with her, referring her to be associated as a promiscuous woman.

Repetition of ‘whore’ - indicates how far he is removed from his noble, non-patriarchal attitude, he has been poisoned to view women in this way.

Question 21

5.2 OTHELLO “I know not where is that Promethean
heat. That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again.”

Answer 21

AO2 - Whole speech is full of symbolic meaning, and refers to the Greek god who stole fire from god and gave it to humans to make life from a piece of clay (prometheus).
AO2 - This is an analogy of Desdemona’s life that cannot be so easily restored.

Not just marriage, but lost innocence in general. He has misplaced his deepest values, trusted in the insubstantial insinuations of Iago, doubted the purity of the truest character in the play.

Question 22

5.2 OTHELLO “so sweet was ne’er so fatal”

Answer 22

paradox/antithesis shows he is conflicted between sides of desdemona in an internal dilemma. Confused by gods divine justice, has to get revenge, is this is his fatal flaw? Or embarrassment? Desdemona? arrogance?

Question 23

5.2 OTHELLO “my wife, my wife! What wife? I have no wife… Methinks it should be now
a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon”

Later “O,O,O!”

Answer 23

Panicked, he realises what he has done emphasising the word ‘wife’
AO3 - Link to jesus’ crucifixion in matthew’s new testament when he claims there is a solar eclipse and earthquake.
Her death is so momentous to othello, also carries idea of the innocent being killed by the evil.
Sun = othello (heat and passion), moon = desdemona (purity,artemis/diana god)

Had a moment of realisation - anagnorsis - that iago was in the wrong

Question 24

5.2 OTHELLO “she was false as water”

Answer 24

AO2 Water is meant to symbolise cleansing, rebirth and hygiene BUT water also lies, changes, moves and seeps through cracks

Question 25

5.2 “O fool, fool, fool!”

Lodovico “your power and your command is taken off”

Answer 25

When cassio says he found the handkerchief in his chamber, othello suddenly realises iago’s plan.
AO2 Has a moment of anagnorisis, typical of tragedy as the hero realises iago’s lies and how it has ruined his life.
He is then stripped of his power, hamartia is almost fully achieved

Question 26

1.3 DESDEMONA “I hither to your daughter. But here’s my husband:”

Answer 26

She is claiming to be equal with othello, she is confident and brave unlike women of the shakespearean era who have no say

Question 27

3.3 to othello “tomorrow dinner then?”
“I shall not dine at home…”
why then, tomorrow night, or tuesday morn; on tuesday, noon or night; on wednesday morn!”

“What, micheal cassio that came a-wooing with you?”

Answer 27

AO2 - Short, tense lines indicate the frustration and anger. Othello has been warned by iago and is now being pestered by desdemona.
There’s an element of conflict that they share in their blank verse. AO2

So niave - She is genuinely trying to help cassio but she is just disrespecting othello and making it seem like she is on cassios side.

Question 28

3.3 DESDEMONA [she drops her handkerchief]

Answer 28

AO2 - This is very significant and the handkerchief represents both love femininity dainty and respect but also betrayal grief and upset

Question 29

3.4 DESDEMONA “i think the sun where he was born drew all such humours from him”

Answer 29

Emphasises the foreignness + difference of othello.
Desdemona believes his tough upbringing taught him virtue and does not feel jealous.
This however is very ironic as the audience know othello is riddled with jealousy.

Question 30

4.1 DESDEOMONA “my lord?” repeated

Answer 30

AO2 - The repetition establishes her inferiority. She is so obedient to othello, sees him as a figure she can never disobey
Her naivety is becoming frustrating to audiences aswell.

AO4 - Similar to Hamlet when hamlet interrogates ophelia she says ‘my lord?’
Shakespeare constantly questions a womans virtue but hamlet and othello were wrong so maybe its a sympathetic message

Question 31

4.2 DESDEMONA “lay on my bed my wedding sheets; remember, a call thy husband hither”

Answer 31

AO2 - Symbolises fidelity, marriage, the handkerchief, Also what a wife who would die early would be wrapped in, proleptic irony.

AO3 - Elizabethan tradition was to hang the bed sheets that a newly married couple had slept on out in public to show off the blood on it. This blood would suggest their wife was a virgin and therefore pure. Here Desdemona is trying to repair her and Othello’s marriage by proving that she isn’t a ‘whore’ but we get the feel that it is too little, too late.

Question 32

5.2 [he smothers her]

Answer 32

A symbolic death.
Dies in her white, innocent wedding sheets, a place that is meant to be safe for her. Demonstrates the corruption of purity as the only innocent character is killed, silenced also by smothering.

Question 33

2.1 CASSIO “O, let the heavens give him defence against the elements, for I have lost him on a dangerous sea”

Answer 33

Cassio is very upset of othello’s disappearance, could this be anything more?
AO2 - The religious and metaphorical words he uses shows he speaks lovingly of othello. Weakness?

Question 34

2.1 CASSIO “one that excels the quirks of blazoning pens … the divine desdomona”

Answer 34

AO2 - “blazoning” is depicting a woman’s body one by one. This is slightly odd for cassio to be doing and shows he is invested yet overfamiliar in their relationship

AO2 - Alliterative- in awe. He links desdomona to angels and religion.

Question 35

4.2 EMILIA “i will be hanged, if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, … have not devised this slander.

Answer 35

Emilia is clever and intelligent, she has realised someone has poisoned othello’s mind.
AO2 - The audience must be so frustrated through dramatic irony as she has almost cracked the code that it is iago behind it all.
AO2 - There is lots of violence in her language,very passionate, maybe as an anomaly in the portrayal of women pr have picked it up from iago

Question 36

5.1 BIANCA “O cassio, cassio, cassio!”
Iago: “gentlemen all, i do suspect this trash to be a party in this injury”

Answer 36

Saddening to see this unrequited love, she is also the only woman to survive.

iago uses bianca’s arrival as a leeway, blaming her would e believable as the status of women in 1600, especially a prostitute was extremely low.
this addresses the contextual issue reinfrces the hegemony of men in the patriachal society