roderigo

Question 1

‘it is silliness to live, when to live is torment: and then we have a prescription to die, when death is our physician’

Answer 1

prose - roderigo is losing rationality

elizabethans believed in reason over passion

hyperbolic metaphor, being melodramatic could be relating to othello’s suicide at the end of the play. also ironic because they make themselves suffer, it isn’t a product of life as they allow this to happen to themselves

could be foreshadowing roderigo’s demise and a metaphor showing iago is the physician, prescribing roderigo’s actions - seemingly acting to people’s aid but corrupting them from the inside outward

Question 2

‘i cannot believe that in her; she’s full of most blest condition’

Answer 2

opposing views of desdemona shared by roderigo and iago in this exchange represent two archetypes of shakespearean characters

roderigo is a romantic; iago is a classicist.

romantic types are driven by emotion and idealism

classical types are cooler and more analytical

roderigo idealises Desdemona, iago, who idealises nothing, resorts with the humorous, sobering truth that ‘the wine she drinks is made of grapes’

Question 3

‘i will hear further reason of this’

Answer 3

how manipulative iago is

roderigo is convinced there is no way he can’t not kill cassio

could expose iago as the villain but he doesn’t - is he the fool of the play?

Question 4

‘o damned iago! o inhuman dog!’

Answer 4

recognises iago’s villainy- tragic as it is too late for roderigo and thus anyone else to recognise this villainous trait in iago

bestial imagery against iago also creates a poignant contrast to the bestial slander of othello earlier. its like the irony in his slander of othello (a heroic character at the time) is flipped into a clarity that comes (tragically) far too late this last moment of realisation as roderigo sees the truth just too late

with no conscious or morals capable of evil, harmful acts

gluttony, scavengers sent by god to tear and devour.