"How does Shakespeare engage the audience through character and action in the first Act?"

The first 200 words of this essay...

"How does Shakespeare engage the audience through character and action in the first Act?"

In the opening act of the play, Shakespeare creates suspense and excitement, at once immersing the observer in intrigue and conspiracy. Shakespeare throws his audience directly into a conversation, introducing some of the major themes and concerning issues of the play. Furthermore, by centering the dialogue and action around the characters of Othello and Desdemona, without yet having presented them to the audience in person, Shakespeare increases our desire to become more engrossed in the play.

Shakespeare's decision to make a black man a tragic hero was bold although not original. In this play, Othello is the black man in a white man's society - the notion of black and white being the best contrast between the two characters, although the notional colours are inverted in the play (Othello/good = white; Iago/evil = black). It is true to say that in Elizabethan times, most theatre-goers would probably never have seen a black person, and the concept of such a person in a powerful position, let alone a powerful position in a white society, would have been totally alien to them.

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