How does Shakespeare make Act 5 Scene 2 Dramatic?

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How does Shakespeare make Act 5 Scene 2 Dramatic?

William Shakespeare wrote many plays in the late 16th and early 17th century. During this period he wrote the play Othello. This period, in which Shakespeare wrote many of his plays, was Elizabethan England. At this time England was a horrible place to live. The vast majority of the population of London were white which made Elizabethan England into a very racist society with the majority of the population thinking themselves as the superior race. In the play Othello, Othello is a black man whereas Iago is a white man. Shakespeare may have used this as part of the reason for why Iago manipulated Othello throughout the play, showing Iago as an extreme racist. However, if the play had really been set in Venice, this would not have been a problem as Venice, at the time, was a very important trading link and therefore had many different races living within the city. This suggests that Shakespeare had not visited Venice before he wrote this play. When Shakespeare incorporates racism into the play it dramatises the performance as the Elizabethan audiences would have been racist. Racism could be the first cause or the only cause of what Iago does to him but Othello’s death is made even more tragic as Iago refuses to tell him why he has done these things. “Demand that demi-devil why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?” Iago then replies by saying that he will never tell anyone. “From this day forth I will never speak a word.” This is a key point in act 5 scene 2 as it creates huge suspense and dramatic tension with Othello not knowing why Iago did these things to him and it is the one thing he wants to know before he dies. The quotation is ironic in the sense that throughout the play Iago has been manipulating Othello whilst pretending to be his friend. Where Othello asks Iago “why he hath ensnared my soul and body?” I see him almost begging to be told by Iago why he has done these things. Alternatively he could not be directing his comment at Iago as he does refer to Iago as the “demi-devil.” He could be saying this due to his absolute hate and disbelief of what he has done to him as the devil is normally referred to as the height of pure evil. Othello uses the devil as a metaphor for the bad the Iago has done to him and comparing Iago to the devil really show his hate and disbelief of his doing. Othello then kills his wife due to what Iago has been telling him and because he trusts Iago. It is only in act 5 scene 2 that Othello realises that he has been set up throughout the play and wants to know why. Iago may not want to tell him due to the fact that he just wants to see him die in the pain of not knowing why he betrayed him like that. Even though the play would have been performed in, and was written in, a very racist society, Shakespeare has Othello, his main character and hero, as a black man. I think he may have done this to show the corruption and pain that racism causes. He would have done this through Iago. However, he may have just been trying to show that there should be equality between the two races by having the main character and hero as a black man while the people who are less important like Iago, for example, are white. This is the reverse of Elizabethan society and could show that Shakespeare did indeed visit Venice, the setting for the play, before he wrote it. By reversing the black and white roles in the play, compared to real life, Shakespeare is making a moral judgement on his audience.

When Shakespeare wrote the play Othello there were two main genres, both were different but both were popular tragic and dramatic genres at the time. The first of these is Aristotelian and Neo Classical Tragedy. In the play, Shakespeare uses partly this genre and other parts of the play came from the genre of Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedy. This was a very popular tragedy with writers like Webster, Middleton and Fletcher all using this genre and they became famous for it. Shakespeare managed to mix and match these two completely different genres to create one of his own that fitted the story line. He was not a traditional writer in the sense that he did not go with the flow, as we can see by how he mixed the two different genres of the time, creating one standalone genre that is different from the rest. This may have been part of why Shakespeare was so successful. The parts from each original genre are as follows and I can see from the play that he uses them. I can see that there is a tragic flaw in a couple of the characters. Definitely Othello with his jealousy towards Casio but also there may have been a tragic flaw in Iago in that he is a racist and this led him to his exploitation of Othello’s tragic flaw. When Iago tells Othello of Desdemona’s infidelity he becomes very angry towards both Casio and Desdemona and this leads him to wanting the death of Casio and Desdemona, his wife. Shakespeare then links this part of the genre of Aristotelian and Neo Classical Tragedy to a part of the genre Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedy where he chose part of the genre that includes a quest for revenge and results in a blood thirsty final scene with many of the main characters dying. This is a common thing with Shakespeare as in Romeo and Juliet, both of the heroes in the play die at the end resulting dramatised irony that leaves the mind to wonder about ‘what if’. Another way that Shakespeare uses the genre of Aristotelian and Neo Classical Tragedy is that in the play there is a reversal of circumstances, due to the quest for revenge and severe jealousy and trust that Othello has. The reversal of the circumstances is that at the beginning of the play, Othello is the army general, the big man, but at the end of the play, due to his wrong doings, he becomes worthless and everybody looks down on him as if he were nothing.

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In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare’s main character, Macbeth, is influenced by the other characters in the play for example: Lady Macbeth and the witches, just as Othello is manipulated and influenced by Iago. These tragic flaws of the characters, in both plays, leads them to believing what they are told and acting impulsively on false information. This is a common trait in Shakespeare’s work. In both cases the weakness of the characters led them to their downfalls and they lost everything- a fallen hero.  

During act 5 scene 2 there is a lot of dramatic irony ...

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