Roderigo’s speech is powerful, emotional and dramatic. He opens with such a powerful paragraph with “Tush! never tell me.” From here we can be led to believe he is a dominant character. Shakespeare’s use of language in the opening scene is typical to his many other work’s. he makes use of thou which is the less respectful, insulting form of you. This seems to indicate to us Roderigo holds great status and the character on the receiving end is of low status.
The audience now feel the need to delve deeper and Shakespeare feeds our desire with Iago’s come back. His reply is cunning and reverses the backlash and under takes a strong oath and exclaims that he is disgusted that Roderigo has such a low opinion of him. As an audience we are perhaps a little confused the but it soon becomes apparent almost immediately that Iago is manipulative and takes advantage of Roderigo. This is effective to a drama as the early stages of the play contain a sense of dramatic irony.
Not only does the opening to Othello create a strong feeling of tension but Shakespeare also encourages the audience to continue involvement by using various strategies which include disorientation, disturbance and by raising questions which the audience feel the need to seek the answers. The disturbance is introduced by the intrusion of a Venice street at night with the banter of two men.
There is a great use of pronouns which excludes the audience to a certain degree but also catapults them straight into the action. This displays to us that it is a familiar conversation and makes reference to people only the characters know and emits very little to the audience yet it essential to the development of the play. To keep the audience’s attention Shakespeare raises some invoking and thought stirring points.
The reason I feel the opening is so effective is because it is creates a lasting impression on the audiences mind as the audience is still unsure of the basis of the characters’ conversation. This works well as Shakespeare has an excellent technique of withholding information for as long as possible until he has kept the audience guessing for some time and they become desperate to know what has led up to this point. The playwright does not include unessential information within the opening. The tension that he creates in the Act 1 is absolutely crucial to the play, as without it he would not be able to make such a lasting impact on the reader.
In conclusion the use of language and linguistic devices used by Shakespeare in the opening scene. Shakespeare later gives the audience the upper hand and introduces dramatic irony to add to the already tense atmosphere.
