A complete guide to Othello's plot, construction, techniques, themes, concepts, etc, with important quotes annotated and picked out. Includes scene summaries and elaborate analyses of quotes relevant to students taking written exams on Othello, enhanced by critical readings.
Othello revision booklet AQA A Level English Lit B
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Othello Scene Summaries
Act 1.1 Summary
1. Iago speaks to Roderigo in the streets of Venice, complaining about being passed over
for a promotion. He tells Roderigo that Michael Cassio is unqualified for the position of
lieutenant and that the job should have been his.
2. Iago says that he only follows Othello to take advantage of him in the future.
3. They alert Brabantio (Desdemona’s father) that Desdemona has run off and married
Othello to try to break up their relationship. Upon checking Desdemona's room and
finding it empty, Brabantio gathers his men and tells them to alert the authorities.
Roderigo then leads the hunt to Othello.
4. Iago sneaks off and goes to Othello so that it would look as though he had nothing to do
with the angry chase.
● We find that Iago is very eloquent
● We see elements of power, he wants power + money, exploitation of Roderigo and
stealing + tricking him of his money
● Prejudice - Iago focusing on Cassio being a Florentine - hints that this play is about
prejudice, has racial elements in there
● “I follow him to serve my turn upon him.” - Iago is a gambler - Coleridge
● “I am not what I am.” - not hiding who he is
● link with greed + power
● “Whip me such honest knaves” - machiavellian character
● “What a full fortune does the thick lips owe,” - appearance, racist name for him
● “Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags” - prejudice in terms of gender,
women treated like objects
● “An old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe” - lustful/sexual deviance - animal, horns
apparently suggests cuckolding
● White - innocence, black evil
● “Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.”
● “Zounds, sir; you are one of those… you’ll have your daughter covered with a barbary
horse, you’ll have your nephews neigh to you, you’ll have coursers for cousins, and
jennets for germans.” - Verse to prose - Iago attempts to hide his identity → two faced,
not to be trusted, very hyperbolic language
● “Barbary horse” - black horse species
● “Making the beast with two backs.” - doing it prior to getting married, two meanings,
making something unnatural and appearance wise
● “Thou art a villain.” - dramatic irony - Brabantio to Iago
● Brabantio’s language has shifted, “where didst thou see her? O happy girl? With the
Moor, says’t thou?...” accumulation of rhetorical questions - parallels to later in the play
when Othello also thinks that Desdemona betrayed him.
● “I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / For daws to peck at.” - dramatic irony, paradox,
Iago
● Othello’s blackness is connected to the devil and hell and all the things that aren’t
christian, sexual nature, them doing it without marriage - racist undertone
Linked Readings
- On Black Males in History, Theory and Education
→ stereotypes of black people throughout history
,- Black Magic: Witchcraft, Race, and Resistance in Colonial New England
→ research on the black experience and how racial tensions tie to contradictions, e.g.
black people being perceived as simultaneously powerful and powerless, which actually
empowered them: (X’s fear of the powerless Y becoming powerful in itself is a vessel of
power Y can harness)
Other Readings
- Carl Jung on “Revenge” - Anthology → “Experience shows that the archetype, as a
natural phenomenon, has a morally ambivalent character, or rather, it possesses no moral
quality in itself but is amoral, like the Yahwistic God-image, and acquires moral qualities
only through the act of cognition.”
- *Yahwistic God-image here refers to the amoral nature of Yahweh (god) in Jewish biblical
scripture. God is believed to be, contradictingly, the cause of both all natural evils and all
natural goods, which is seen as an amoral form of cognition (and without pity) (Beyond
Reconciliation - Monistic Yahwism and the Problem of Evil in Philosophy of Religion)
Act 1.2 Summary
Iago asks Othello about his marriage to Desdemona, and attempts to make Othello
reconsider his decision by warning him about Brabantio’s wrath when he finds out. Brabantio
finds Othello and confronts him for secretly marrying his daughter without his approval and
takes him to court.
● Othello’s language is very poetic
● Prose to Iago, not as eloquent
● “Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carrack;” - misogynistic towards Desdemona
● Othello appears to be respected but he is actually not → racism + appearance vs reality
● Association of black people with witchcraft - “For an abuser of the world, a practiser Of
arts inhibited and out of warrant.”
● “Sooty bosom Of such a thing as thou”
Act 1.3 Summary
The senators find out that Turkish fleets are on the way to take over Cyprus. They ask Othello
to join the war to stop the Turks. Brabantio tells everyone that Othello has stolen his daughter,
but Othello says that it is for their love. Brabantio thinks that Othello is a devil who has used
witchcraft to win over his daughter’s affection. Othello says that he had won Desdemona
through his stories of war and his difficulties throughout his life where she pitied his
experiences. Desdemona is then brought up to speak for herself and to say whether or not
what Othello had said was true. Desdemona reveals that it was true and Brabantio becomes
angry at her daughter but he is unable to do anything about it. Thus, he allows the duke to
speak about military matters instead. Desdemona wants to leave with Othello to the war and
she will, with Iago’s wife as her maid to help her. Iago talks to Roderigo after the meeting,
discussing what to do with the marriage between the two. Roderigo says that he would drown
himself because Desdemona married Othello but Iago stops him and tells him that he has
hope. Iago tells Roderigo to make more money in order for Desdemona to like him and for
their plan to work, “put money in thy purse”. But Iago is taking advantage of his stupidity to
earn money off him, revealed in his soliloquy, “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse,”. Iago
also reveals that he would be using Cassio to set a scene to make Othello believe that his
,wife is unfaithful. He thinks that Othello will be easy to trick/manipulate, “will as tenderly be led
by the nose / As asses are.”
● After line 60 - good to find quotes
● “Valiant moor” - valued member of society
● Accumulation - “she is abused, stol’n from me, and corrupted By spells and medicines
bought of mountebanks” - objectification of Desdemona
● “Most potent grave and reverend signor” - poetic verse - Othello
● “I won his daughter” - eloquent but ended abruptly to not offend the people who are of
higher positions.
● “Where most you owe obedience?” - Brabantio asks Desdemona
● Desdemona → diplomatic, pure, elegant, no agency
● “And noble signior, If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than
black.” - antithesis - racist = your son in law is not like other black men
● “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: she has deceived her father and may thee” -
foreshadowing, if she can deceive her father, maybe she can also deceive you, maybe
she’s not as innocent as you think
● “Honest Iago” - irony
● People refer to him as “the moor” even in front of him, deeply entrenched
● “My life upon her faith” - foreshadowing - people interact with him on the surface of his
race and then Othello
● Othello makes rash decisions - he is a soldier, dependent on life or death, the measures
he takes is very militaristic
● Iago is very quick witted - uses prose to talk to Roderigo - alludes to sexual behaviour
very often - switches between prose and verse very easily - shows that he is a pro at
forming facades
● Iago thinks: No such thing as virtue, no such thing as love, women are things for him to
use - shows that he doesn’t have morals
● “Put money in thy purse” - subtle manipulation - says it like 8 times in his conversation
with Roderigo
● “The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts must change for youth;” -
objectification of Desdemona, shakespearean era where women are treated as objects
for pleasure and thrown away after being used - Iago says something like men vomit back
out the women after eating them essentially comparing them to food
● To claim a woman is not virtuous is very rude at the time, saying that “when she is sated
with his body, she will find error in her choice.”
● “Filling migrant letterboxes with excrement” - Germaine Greer - suggests that Iago is an
exemplified racist - the quote is what Germaine Greer describes how Iago would be in
modern times
● “He’s done my office” - represents amelia as something to be used to help in excel, also
just thinks of his wife as work
● In Iago’s soliloquy, he doesn’t have any reason for his hate towards Othello, it’s almost as
if he’s searching for excuses for what he’s doing
● Iago is an embodiment of Satan
● “Cassio’s a proper man” - says Cassio is handsome, rich, sounds like Iago likes Cassio ;)
● “And will as tenderly be led by the nose/ As asses are” - bestial imagery, racist undertone
- Iago’s soliloquies: act 1 scene 3, act 2 scene 1, act 2 scene 3, act 3 scene 3, act 4 scene
1, act 5 scene 1
, Act 2.1 Summary
● ‘Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
● “The riches of the ship is come on shore!” - emphasises her status as a rich woman →
also emphasises her value - objectifying her like a gem or jewel or is it praise
● “He hath achieve a maid” - desdemona is an achievement - dehumanised
● “That I extend my manners. ‘Tis my breeding That gives me this old show of courtesy” -
sets up Cassio’s character: he is Italian and Italians are culturally affectionate
● “I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,” - Othello and Desdemona are in harmony
and iago wants to ruin it.
● “As honest as I am” - Iago says it himself - sarcastic - Iago recognises that he himself is a
villain (he later on says like how am I a villain? So it’s pretty paradoxical)
● “The knave is handsome, young, and hath all those requisites in him that folly and green
minds look after” - evidence that Iago is attracted to Cassio
● “Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used” - describes Cassio as a person who is
secretly very lustful and pretty much just a bad person - dramatic irony since we as the
audience know that he is actually bad.
● “The wine she drinks is made of grapes.If she had been blest she would never have loved
the moor” - Desdemona is just like everyone else if she were blessed, she would have
never loved the moor
● “That Cassio loves her, I do well believe’t that she loves him” - he has to convince himself
that Cassio loves Desdemona for him to convince others the same
● “The moor, howbeit that i endure him not, Is of a constant, love, noble nature” - highlights
Othello’s good parts to make Othello’s goodness prominent and make it clear that Othello
is not the villain
● “If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,” -
Roderigo is like his dog
● “I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip, Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb” - Cassio
is like his dagger for him to ~slay~ Othello
● “For I fear Cassio with my night cap too” - strong objectification of his wife
● “For making him egregiously an ass” - bestial imagery
Act 2.3 Summary
● “No for I hold him to be unworthy of his place” - Cassio says that he shouldn’t be drinking
● “It’s true, good lieutenant.” - pretending that he is safe and won’t let him drink too much
and let him cause chaos
● “And so do I too, lieutenant.” - Iago rubbing towards his favour - keeps agreeing with
Cassio and calling him his position lieutenant
● Mirroring and manipulation is very powerful
● “Not I, for this fair island: I do love Cassio well, and would do much To cure him of this
evil.” - dramatic irony
● “Away I say, go out and cry a mutiny.” - allows us to see that he is the orchestrator - aside
● “Nay, good lieutenant; God’s will, gentlemen!” - caesura, how good of an actor Iago is, a
lot of pauses and stuff
● “Honest Iago,” epithet - highlighting Iago’s betrayal
● “I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth Than it should do offence to Michael
Cassio.” - dramatic irony
● “I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your own
good.” - dramatic irony
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