Read our overview which shows how teacherscan consider Othello in relation to the genre of tragedy. We haven't covered every element of this genre. Instead we hope thisguide will provide a springboard to help you plan, and to get you and yourstudents thinking about the text in more detail.
Othello
Othello is a play that is a mainstream Shakespearean tragedy and thereforeis an obvious text for Paper 1. It is a play capable of arousing deep emotionsin audiences, exciting feelings of pity and terror (feelings that according toPlato ought to be kept in check). It isalso politically controversial and dangerous, challenging 17th century Europeancultural norms of what it means to be noble and moral. It is both a tragedy of love and a revengetragedy; it is also the tragedy of what happens when soldiers are hotlyprepared for war but have no war to occupy them. The play includes many of thegeneric conventions of tragedy that students might expect to find – a hero whois 'great of heart' but has an overweening pride and makes a fatal error ofjudgment, a hero who is exploited by an unfathomable villain, a hero who bringsabout suffering and death to others and a hero who inevitably suffers a tragicfall and dies. In following Othello's tragic path, Shakespeare invites theaudience to engage with his hero's reversal of fortunes (is the cause in thestars or man-made?) and make intellectual judgments about his fate, followinghis journey from ignorance to knowledge as he reaches, in Aristotle's terms,'Recognition'. Significantly Othello's knowledge comes too late, a key aspectof tragedy.
Othello is also a domestic tragedy: the tragedy of marriage. Othello andDesdemona have a passionate love which could be seen as a threat to the rulesestablished by patriarchal order: their intense, emotionally charged and equalmarriage challenges ideas about class, race and the conformity of women. Theplay suggests that ultimately, if the social order is to continue, thismarriage and what it represents must be destroyed.
Settings
The main action of the play is set inCyprus, away from the known, civilised world of Venice, where capitalismthrives. Venice in the seventeenthcentury was a republic, controlled by the wealthy merchant classes who boughtpower, employing mercenary soldiers to protect their colonial exploits. Thesetting of Cyprus allows Shakespeare to place his characters in a world withoutthe boundaries that would be imposed upon them by an established city state.Cyprus is a fortified outpost of civilisation, on the edge of Christianterritory, a barrier between Christian values and the infidels, the enemies ofthe true faith. Cyprus is less controlled, a bastion of male power whereDesdemona, alone and isolated from her Venetian support system, is vulnerableto the machinations of the arch manipulator Iago. This is a savage, warlikemilieu (despite its association with Aphrodite and love) where Venetiansoldiers have gone to fight, but because the invading Turks have all beendrowned there is no war. As a result the soldiers in their claustrophobicconfines have time to turn on each other without the controlling order ofVenice. In the first Act which is set in Venice, Shakespeare establishes anordered world in which Iago's attempts at disruption are easily thwarted.
The movement to Cyprus and the re-locationof the characters there allows Iago to work more successfully, ensnaring all inthe weaving of his plot.
Othello as Tragic Hero
Othello's position as tragic hero isinteresting and complex. Although, as a general, he holds a high military rankin the Venetian army, in terms of his tragic status he is not a European kingor a European nobleman and so in one way is a figure much closer to that of an'ordinary' man than most of Shakespeare's other tragic heroes. Othello hasmilitary power but no status in Venetian society because of his colour andrace; his 'life and being' is not European. He is a black man, a Moor and wassold to slavery.
However, he fetches his 'life and being/From men of royal siege'. In this sense, Othello has the required status for aclassic tragic hero. He is foreign royalty and has a culture which is exotic,mysterious, and extraordinary, symbolised in part by the strawberry spottedhandkerchief with magic in its web. But he is always an outsider to Europeanculture.
Yet, in terms of the tragedy, Othello is aworthy hero, despite Iago's attempts to blacken his name at the start of theplay. Although Iago claims Othelloloves 'his own pride and purposes' and rails bitterly against what he feels isOthello's poor judgment and mistreatment of him, when the audience meet Othellofor the first time he is measured, dignified and commanding.
To elevate his status, Shakespeare giveshim musical language. To those who come to arrest him for eloping withDesdemona, Othello says: 'Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rustthem'. He insists that were it his cue to fight he 'should have known itwithout a prompter'. He is an excellentgeneral, a point verified by the Duke and the Senate, respects his wife (he gives her voice tospeak for herself when confronted by Brabantio and the Duke) and is confidentto speak of his love in public ('If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be mosthappy'). He is, in many ways, noble andadmirable. Like other tragic heroes, healso has a fatal flaw –jealousy – which Iago exploits to the full. His flaw connects Othello with audiences whoalso might have felt the stab of the green eyed monster. Othello's fate is perhaps more likely toinspire pity and fear because of that connection.
Othello's fall from nobility and grace,from articulate general to brainwashed puppet of Iago, speaking obscenely andincoherently (Lie with her? Lie on her...Pish! Noses, ears and lips. Is'tpossible? Confess? Handkerchief? O devil!) is the play's driving tragicimpulse. Before he dies he understands how he has been wrought upon, how he hastrusted the false stories about a strawberry handkerchief and he gains someknowledge of his shortcomings. It could also be argued that his tragic staturerises when he realises what he has thrown away and that he is elevated by thequality of his speech: 'If heaven would make me such another world/ Of oneentire and perfect chrysolite/ I'd not have sold her for it'. Before he takeshis own life he imagines meeting Desdemona at the last judgment hurling hissoul from heaven. He consolidates this vision by committing suicide. He hasnothing more to lose. Whether or not audiences and readers finally sympathisewith Othello however is debateable. While some mourn his death and seesomething heroic in the way he acknowledges the shame of his conduct, others,like Leavis, see his final speech as self dramatising, with its focus, not onhis victims, but on himself and how he will be remembered.
Iago as Villain
For many, Iago is the ultimate stagevillain – calculating, manipulative, clever and ruthless. Despite Coleridge's claim that Iago'ssoliloquies reveal 'the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity', Iago's role ismore complex. On one level he does haveseveral motives for his actions and is very clear about them – Cassio has beenpromoted to the post he believed was his, he suspects Othello to have cuckoldedhim and he is jealous of Cassio who hasa daily beauty in his life that makes Iago ugly. However, despite his undoubted cunning anddesire for revenge against Cassio and Othello, Shakespeare does not presentIago as having a clear plan from the start of the play: he is more an opportunistic villain whoseideas gather momentum as he tastes success.What is most disturbing perhaps is that his plotting and the torture heinflicts on others are clearly a source of pleasure to him. He enjoys the sportof the terrible games he plays. He enjoys the destruction of love which he doesnot understand. It is significant that most of his monstrous activities takeplace in darkness: he is associated with hell and night. It is possible to readIago from a theological position and see him as a devil incarnate, with hisancestors in the medieval Mystery Plays. It is also possible to read him as astage Machiavel, one who tortures and torments those who are good, using theirvery goodness to 'enmesh them'. Some modern readings also focus on Iago as avehicle of the state, voicing its patriarchal contempt (and perhaps fear) ofoutsiders and women. His self-interests are the self-interests of those whogovern. He understands Venetian attitudes and he becomes the state's agent inremoving those who transgress its unwritten laws. What Iago achieves in thedestruction of Othello and Desdemona could be seen as what the state desires.
Victims
Othello is a play with many victims, not least the title character himselfwho falls victim to Iago's manipulation and his own jealous rage. At the end ofthe play Othello asks Cassio to demand of the demi-devil why he has 'ensnared' his'soul and body'. Desdemona is also a victim, murdered by her husband for acrime she does not commit, and plotted against by Iago, perhaps for challengingthe authority of men (she tells Emelia not to 'learn' of Iago though he is herhusband). She is often portrayed onstage as a childlike young bride and yet Shakespeare suggests in the first actthat she is a woman of spirit and independence who knows her own mind. She defies the expectations and desires ofher father to marry a man of his choice. Instead she marries the black soldierOthello and determines to travel with him to Cyprus. There she is manipulated by a series of malefigures, and strangled in her bed by Othello. In the end she replicates thefate of Barbary, her mother's maid whose love proved mad and 'did forsakeher'. Emilia is another victim of loveand another victim of the abuse of women by men. However, unlike Desdemona, whodies claiming she herself is responsible for her own death and wishing to becommended to her 'kind lord', Emilia unleashes a tirade of rebukes on the 'dullMoor' who has been so gulled and also on her husband, delivering a blow to maleauthority when she denounces him. However, in true tragic fashion, herrebellion comes too late to avert the tragic outcome.
Deaths
At the end of the play Lodovico instructsIago and the audience to 'Look on the tragic loading' of the bed of Desdemonaand Othello where the married couple and Emelia lie dead. It is a stark imageand completes the tragic pattern. Roderigo has also died, bled dry by Iago andstabbed to death in the dark.
Resolution
The final judgments rest with the audience.We are left to think about our emotions and about moral, social, political andphilosophical issues. Is Othelloredeemed? Is there catharsis? Is there a feeling that the world is somehowdiminished by his passing? Is there a feeling that there are moral forces atwork and the world is striving to become a better place? Cassio will rule inCyprus so there is restoration of order of a sort. But how comfortable does anaudience feel with this appointment? (Certainly his attitudes towards women arequestionable). Desdemona had challenged the patriarchal order in marryingOthello, had shown a free and open spirit but she is murdered. The patriarchalattitudes that existed at the start of the play are reinforced by Cassio'sappointment. Therefore how safe is the future with him? The tragic villain Iagostill lives and defiantly says that though he bleeds he is not killed and that'from this time forth' he 'never will speak word'. Lodovico sentences Iago to'cunning cruelty' and 'torture', though disturbingly perhaps there is stillsome kind of triumph at his indestructibility. The resolution is uncomfortableand with the deaths of Desdemona, Emelia and Othello, there is a terrible senseof waste.
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This resource is part of the Aspects of tragedy resource package.
Specifications that use this resource:
- AS and A-level English Literature B 7716; 7717
