Tragic Aspects

Question 1

Foul revenge

Answer 1

Roderigo’s hatred for Othello stemming from envy causes him to be open to manipulation and involved in a foul revenge

Iago’s envy of Cassio’s promotion (calling him a “spinster”) leads him to plan a foul revenge

Question 2

Tragic villainy

Answer 2

Iago reveals his capacity to mask his envy and hatred with honesty and kindness (I am not what I am).

Question 3

Prejudice/misjudgement

Answer 3

Iago, however, rallies the white Brabantio on their side by using prejudice as a tool, describing Othello as an animal (“black ram”) and sex with Desdemona as bestial

Brabantio interweaves racial prejudice into his injured sense of manhood. He is horrified by interracial sexuality and that has voluntarily eloped with a “sooty…thing.”

Question 4

Hubris

Answer 4

Othello knows that his honourable military service will outweigh Brabantio’s grievance.

Question 5

Treatment of women

Answer 5

Women in this society were always obedient to some man, or at least were supposed to be. Men who did not keep their women obedient were seen as failures.
“I do perceive here a divided duty” (1.3)

Brabantio defines Desdemona’s independence as disloyalty to men

‘She has deceived her father, and may thee.’ !.3)

Question 6

Fate

Answer 6

Othello and Desdemona fated to be outsiders due to their abnormal characteristics: Desdemona’s defiance and Othello’s blackness

Question 7

Hamartia

Answer 7

• ## Roderigo’s primary reason for hating Othello is not racial prejudice, but rather jealousy that Othello has won Desdemona

Question 8

Catharsis

Answer 8

Iago
then adds that while he currently pretends to serv
e
Othello
, he is in fact just looking out for his own self-interest:
“In following him I but follow myself […] I am not what I am”. Iago feels as though he will be able to purge his feelings of resent and envy through disguising himself as ‘honest Iago’
(1.1.57; 64).