Discuss and evaluate how Shakespeare uses language to present the character of Othello in Act 1 Scene 3, Act 3 Scene 3 and Act 4 scene 1.

Discuss and evaluate how Shakespeare uses language to present the character of Othello in Act 1 Scene 3, Act 3 Scene 3 and Act 4 scene 1. The play "Othello" was written by William Shakespeare in the 17th century. The most important character, Othello, is the eponymous hero of the play. A hero that is broken down from such a high status to a status that isn't dissimilar from an animal's, a 'Barbary horse' for example, a remark that reduces Othello's humanity and is ironically made by Iago, at the beginning of the play, the man that contributes significantly to Othello's tragic downfall. The play is set in Venice and is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragic dramas. Venice was a unique city, it was small but 500 years ago it was one of the great trading centers of the known world. Her power spread far. The enemies of this empire were the Turks. Christian civilisation was at risk because of this. The brave soldier Othello, classed as an outsider because of his North African roots, was a strategic thinker employed to defend Venice and the Christian Civilisation that he represents. Shakespeare uses Othello's language to create a conflict of interest, because society at the time resented people of colour, however Othello's persona and manner, at the beginning of the play, appeals to the Shakespearean audience and they begin to like him. Towards the end of the play, this changes and

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Analyse the methods Iago uses to bring about Othello's downfall. On what kind of weaknesses does he prey to control Othello. Focus particularly on Act3 scene 3.

Analyse the methods Iago uses to bring about Othello's downfall. On what kind of weaknesses does he prey to control Othello. Focus particularly on Act3 scene 3. Act 3 scene 3 is described as the pivotal point of Shakespeare's Othello; before this scene Othello is at peace of mind and content with his life. He is the Moor and very successful at his job. He recently married Desdemona daughter of a white senator Brabantio. Desdemona secretly married Othello, as her father would disapprove of her marrying a black person; so she has been disloyal to her father and family. Iago Othello's Ancient secretly loathes Othello and vows to bring him down, but Othello completely trusts Iago and believes that he is a very honest man. Iago also hates Cassio who is Othello's lieutenant. He uses the kind loving, trusting and loving natures of these main characters to try and get what he wants. He manipulates every word that is said and twists it to create a rift between the other characters. He feeds these lies to Othello and uses his jealousy and undying love for Desdemona to bring about Othello's downfall. During act 3 scene 3 Iago begins his plan to ruin Othello. He starts to question Desdemona and Cassio's relationship by example of her being deceitful to her father when she married Othello. This starts the ball rolling and from this moment forth Othello's character changes and heads for a

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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The character of Iago in the opening scenes of Shakespeares 'Othello'.

The character of Iago in the opening scenes of Shakespeares 'Othello' Shakespeare's play Othello is one that encompasses a variety of characters. These characters have their own trademarks in terms of speech and outlook on life. One of these is the villain Iago. He is perhaps the most terrible villain of any of Shakespeare's numerous plays. One of the main reasons is that he has no real motivations for his actions. At the same time, the language, imagery and dramatic techniques of the play give the reader an insight into Iago's character, while attempting to ultimately shed light on Iago's main motivation. At first glance Iago's character seems to be pure evil and from the language used by Iago in the first act, there is much that can be deduced about his character. Iago plays with language to gain a desired effect. He is able to take words out of their context to produce startling passages. Early on, Iago fills Brabantio with an immediacy through use of vivid, obscene proverbs such as "making the beast with two backs". What this shows is Iago twisting objects to suit his whim, and also his confidence in the power of language. At the same time, Iago makes use of language to urge others on. His use of imperatives such as "Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight, proclaim him in the street, incense her kinsmen" demonstrate his ability to influence and control others

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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The ways in which Shakespeare portrays the themes of deception and jealousy In Othello the play and Othello the character.

The ways in which Shakespeare portrays the themes of deception and jealousy In Othello the play and Othello the character The main characters in relation to jealousy in the play are Othello and Desdemona. Desdemona is the object of Othello's jealousy, which is planted in his mind by Iago's deception. This enhances Othello's position in the minds of the audience as the tragic hero, and deeply links these two themes. The very status of being the tragic hero in the minds of the audience enhances our sense of his deception by Iago. His complete trust in Iago makes Iago seem all the more evil and deceitful in our eyes. Othello's trust in him is demonstrated early in the play: "Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave thee." Act 1 scene 3 Ironically, this show of his complete trust in Iago could in fact serve as a prompt for his plan to bring down Othello (his plan is at this stage undeveloped, although even when it is in progress, it relies as much upon Iago's resourcefulness and fleetness of mind as it does upon prior planning). Iago is trusted and believed by all who know him, and all of these are eventually destroyed: Cassio, Desdemona, Bianca and Roderigo all suffer from his evilness and their deaths are all by-products of his plan. Yet Iago seems unfazed and unperturbed by this, and to the end refuses to intimate his plan to anyone but Roderigo, with whom he contorts and

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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How and why does Iago take revenge on Othello?

GCSE Shakespeare Coursework How and why does Iago take revenge on Othello? Iago is a villain in the story Othello where he plays a viscous man. Iago destroys Othello's mind, he deteriorates Othello until he starts doubting every single judgement he makes. Iago attacks Othello with jealousy, he uses the one thing he cares about most his wife Desdemona and makes Othello doubt her and her fidelity. Iago manipulates his best friend Othello because he wasn't promoted, instead Othello chooses Cassio and Iago feels betrayed and jealous that he was passed over. Also to fuel Iago's jealousy and drive to bring down Othello he starts to use the doubt that Othello slept with his wife Emilia. This is not true at all but it fuels his drive for revenge. To add more ammunition to his reason for bringing down Othello, Iago starts to convince himself that Cassio is also sleeping with his wife. Coleridge, the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity, this means that he has the desire to do something to someone, a desire to hurt and cause them pain. This links to power and him not actually having the power. Iago is poisoned by jealousy and he grabs every opportunity and he abuses peoples trust especially Othello's to exact his revenge. Jealousy, power and evil are floating around in his mind, they consume him. Out of all of his motives, (jealousy, power and pure evil) the one that stands out

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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There is an opposition of black and white imagery which occurs frequently throughout the play which deliberately separates/shows a difference between the main character Othello and his European peers

Othello There is an opposition of black and white imagery which occurs frequently throughout the play which deliberately separates/shows a difference between the main character Othello and his European peers, who are the other characters in the play. Othello's peers choose not to refer to him as Othello but as "the moor". This could be seen as an affectionate way of referring to him, but it could simply show that his colour and race are what they see most. This would be a racialist view of him since his racial identity informs how they perceive him. This shows that even his closest of friends and the most noble soldiers still see him as inferior and less than them. This suggests that they may feel he does not deserve to have a name; it also strips him of his identity and individuality. In the play Brabantio, Desdemona's father, truly believes that Othello has placed a spell on his daughter to make her fall in love with him. He refuses to believe that she could love him from her heart, and there is a suggestion here that it is his colour above everything else that should prevent her from finding him worthy of love. Shakespeare has many of the characters in the play refer to Othello with negative comments, some about his actual features: "What a full fortune does the thick lip owe?" Here Roderigo is basically making a link between the amount he owes and the size of his lips.

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Othello on Trial

"Ladies & Gentlemen of the jury I shall be brief, but I would like to use my remaining time with you to remind you that this case is not a simple one, it is not as simple as black & white. 'Honest Iago' this means a great deal. A judge may be honest but people do not refer to him as 'honest judge', Iago must have been a great man and the one thing that destroyed this great man may sound small but deep in every mans heart it is everything, reputation. Reputation as has been quoted many times during this case think of Brabantio when the story began he was a friend of Othello's until this black man stole his daughter. But why did this matter to him? Because Othello was a black man. Think of Cassio after he was sacked, of how he ranted on and on about his reputation. In this land reputation is everything to a man. Othello took everything away from Iago in this way. He gave the job of his Lieutenant to Cassio, a man who had never seen or experienced war in his life, intead of his long fighting friend who was so close to Iago they might have been brothers. How would you react to this, and I cant stress enough what reputation was to Iago. This great general couldn't have possibly been naïve enough to not realise this, and this is what Iago saw and he reacted in the only way that he knew from his years of war and in this low depression. Othello had mentally stabbed him in the back

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Along with Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, Othello is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies and thus a pillar of what most critics take to be the apex of Shakespeare's dramatic art.

OTHELLO Introduction: Along with Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, Othello is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies and thus a pillar of what most critics take to be the apex of Shakespeare's dramatic art. More than anything else, what distinguishes Othello from its great tragedies peers is the role of its villain, Iago. Iago is a character that essentially writes the play's the main plot (takes a key part in it), he gives first-hand direction to the others and most notably to the noble Othello. The play presents us with two remarkable characters, Iago and his victim (Othello), with Iago as the dominant force, which causes Othello to see the infidelity of his young and beautiful wife, Desdemona, with his favourite lieutenant, Michael Cassio. Setting: Like most Shakespeare tragedies Othello has a distinctive setting. Othello is not restricted to a single place. Act I of the play takes place in the beautiful city of Venice. Act II moves on to Cyprus and this is where act 5 takes place. Characters breakdown: Othello: An African-American Four-Star General in the United States Marine Corps. He is the consummate military man, known for his courage and shrewd judgement on the battlefield. He has all the trappings of a classic hero, including his one fatal flaw - a hidden lack of self-esteem. That flaw drives him to an obsessive need to control his wife, and there is

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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How far do you support each of the following views about the soliloquies in Othello?

How far do you support each of the following views about the soliloquies in Othello? . "Audiences today think that the soliloquy is an outdated and embarrassing device." 2. "It is the soliloquy that gives Shakespeare and his actor a stranglehold on their audiences. It raises tension and creates an intimacy between actor and audience." Soliloquy is a stage device which can be found throughout the works of many modern day playwrights, and is famously used by Shakespeare in his theatrical tragedy, "Othello." We see at many key moments, both the lead roles of Othello and Iago, speak when no other characters are present or listening, revealing their inner most thoughts to the audience, illuminating their private intentions and allowing them to evaluate what their actions have already accomplished, without offering the other characters the chance to learn what they are really like. Some critics express the opinion that modern audiences find that soliloquy is often 'outdated' and 'embarrassing.' In a time of film, where facial close-ups and various other informative techniques can be adopted to reveal characters inner-most thoughts and emotions, the soliloquy in contrast is delivered in neither a subtle or particularly complex manner. Soliloquy can sometimes be seen as an easy way out for writers to reveal their characters and their intent without having to put in any work

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Colderidge described one of Iago's soliloquies as "motive hunting of a motiveless malignity" to what extent do you agree that Iago is motiveless?

Colderidge described one of Iago's soliloquies as "motive hunting of a motiveless malignity" to what extent do you agree that Iago is motiveless? Iago is one of Shakespeare's most complex characters and this remark does point to one aspect of his nature. His persistent need for an audience is so great that he is constantly presenting us with a choice of motives, unconcerned over which one of them is his genuine reason. His motives differ so often from what he portrays them to be, and are often even hidden form himself. There is only one true incentive behind all his motivations, this is his hatred of Othello. This hatred stems from the envy he holds for him. Othello is, and has, everything Iago desires. Othello is bold and courageous; yet is "of constant, loving and noble, nature;" has a beautiful wife who obviously adores him and above all he not only knows how to love but has fallen deeply in love himself. During Elizabethan times, what we today perceive as racism was rife. A black man would not be seen as an equal to a white one and Othello is uniquely privileged not only to hold such a high rank but also to be regard so well in Venice. Perhaps if Othello was white then Iago would not have hated him so deeply? Othello was also the man who promoted Cassio to lieutenant, a position Iago coveted as his own. In the first scene of the play we are made aware of Iago's

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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