OTHELLO- RELATIONSHIP ESSAY
PLANS
ESSAY: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OTHELLO AND DESDEMONA
POINTS
Shakespeare’s initial presentation of a successful and loving mixed-race marriage
which defies societal norms
Iago ultimately destroys Othello and Desdemona’s successful relationship
Othello’s jealously results in a ‘doomed mixed-race marriage’
CRITICS
Loomba- ‘a fantasy of interracial love and tollerance’
‘a nightmare of racial hatred and male violence’
Honigmann- ‘a god-like sense of power’
Katsan- ‘the emotional truth of the struggle’
QUOTES
‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed/ and I loved her that she did pity them’ AO2:
Use of paralleled structure ‘she loved me’ and ‘I loved her’ which differentiate
only through separated use of male and female pronoun. Parallelism
emphasizes a sense of mutual love and respect for one another.
‘O my fair warrior!’/ ‘My dear Othello!’ AO2: Use of affectionate pre-modifying
adjectives emphasize a true sense of the love between them
AO3: Context of 16th century Venice as a city progressive in it’s multiculturalism.
‘the greatest discords be that e’er our hearts shall make!’/ ‘I’ll set down the pegs that
make this music’ AO2: Iago’s uses his intelligence to establish power. This is
evident even down to his manipulation of Desdemona’s language in which he
foreshadows the creation of chaos where there was once harmony
‘Strangle her’ AO2: Imperative is shocking
AO3: Attitudes towards marriage. Iago makes Othello feel like a ‘Cuckold’ a comic figure
AO2: Othello’s shift from using affectionate language and sophisticated Verse
‘That cunning whore that married with Othello’- AO2: expletive insult + 3rd person
removal
‘He strikes her’- Lodovico symbolises perspective of previous harmony
‘O, blood, blood, blood!’ AO2: Deterioration of language into exclamation
AO3: Cinthio’s ‘Hecatommithi’ – intertextuality of the ‘doomed mixed race marriage from
which the story is taken.
PLANS
ESSAY: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OTHELLO AND DESDEMONA
POINTS
Shakespeare’s initial presentation of a successful and loving mixed-race marriage
which defies societal norms
Iago ultimately destroys Othello and Desdemona’s successful relationship
Othello’s jealously results in a ‘doomed mixed-race marriage’
CRITICS
Loomba- ‘a fantasy of interracial love and tollerance’
‘a nightmare of racial hatred and male violence’
Honigmann- ‘a god-like sense of power’
Katsan- ‘the emotional truth of the struggle’
QUOTES
‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed/ and I loved her that she did pity them’ AO2:
Use of paralleled structure ‘she loved me’ and ‘I loved her’ which differentiate
only through separated use of male and female pronoun. Parallelism
emphasizes a sense of mutual love and respect for one another.
‘O my fair warrior!’/ ‘My dear Othello!’ AO2: Use of affectionate pre-modifying
adjectives emphasize a true sense of the love between them
AO3: Context of 16th century Venice as a city progressive in it’s multiculturalism.
‘the greatest discords be that e’er our hearts shall make!’/ ‘I’ll set down the pegs that
make this music’ AO2: Iago’s uses his intelligence to establish power. This is
evident even down to his manipulation of Desdemona’s language in which he
foreshadows the creation of chaos where there was once harmony
‘Strangle her’ AO2: Imperative is shocking
AO3: Attitudes towards marriage. Iago makes Othello feel like a ‘Cuckold’ a comic figure
AO2: Othello’s shift from using affectionate language and sophisticated Verse
‘That cunning whore that married with Othello’- AO2: expletive insult + 3rd person
removal
‘He strikes her’- Lodovico symbolises perspective of previous harmony
‘O, blood, blood, blood!’ AO2: Deterioration of language into exclamation
AO3: Cinthio’s ‘Hecatommithi’ – intertextuality of the ‘doomed mixed race marriage from
which the story is taken.
