Notesale: Turn your study into money

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The speed of scene five:
• Allows Shakespeare to play the audience as Iago plays Othello
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• Structurally, the scene plays out in a cinematic way, with scenes cutting between the action: this places
Iago in the role of director
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'It makes us, or it mars us'
• Repeated notion ('it either makes me, or fordoes me quite')
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• Plays into the motif of his gambling addiction; he gains a thrill from the chanciness of his situation
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'I have rubbed this young quat almost to the sense/and he grows angry'
• Violent image that reduces Roderigo to a spot, which is both belittling and indicative of Iago's dominion
over Roderigo
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• A turning point where Iago loses his tight focus and is overrun by irrational jealousy
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• The beauty is Cassio's openness, whereas Iago believes in duplicity
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• The use of a retiring couplet is stereotypical of a stage villain, placing Othello in the position of
antagonist
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Further
inverts the notion of consummation: the blood should be virginal, but is actually indicative of death
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'O inhuman dog'
• In Titus Andronicus, the Moor is the 'inhuman dog
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Inverts traditional literary
expectations of white and black stereotypes
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'I do suspect this trash/to be party in this injury'
• Quickly turns Bianca's appearance (as a prostitute) into evidence of her as a murderer
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• Reveals Iago's evil opportunism in his bullying of Bianca (a convenient victim)
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• Shows Iago's opportunism in using Bianca's concern as an indicator of her guilt
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'I am no strumpet, but of life as honest/as you that thus abuse me'
• These are the words that Desdemona should have said against Othello's allegations, but did not
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Both are innocent and accused
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• Othello's speech is in verse, highlighting his measured belief in the justness of 'the cause
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'It is the cause, it is the cause'
• Jacobean legalistic wording, showing his considered approach to Desdemona's murder
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'I'll not shed her blood'
• Two ways of reading this: the first, is that he will give her a 'clean' death, perhaps to avoid his own guilt
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'Else she'll betray more men'
• Further justification for the murder
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• The way in which Othello kills Desdemona - with his hands - presents a travesty of a religious sacrificial
offering, aligning with the notion that he is making a sacrifice for the good of menkind
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'When I have plucked thy/rose'
• Othello works within a system of symbolism that allows him to avoid confronting the murder straight on
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'That dost almost persuade/Justice to break her sword'
• Personification of justice emphasises its vital role in Othello's justification of Desdemona's death, as well
as completely removing Othello from any agency in the deed
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'So sweet was ne'er so fatal'; 'weep
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• His emotions interfere with his role as 'minister of justice
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'My lord, my lord'
• Two meanings: the first as an ironic call to God in such an ungodly scene as this, the second as an ironic
reference to Othello's status as a 'lord,' emphasising his fall from grace
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'My wife? My wife? What wife? I have no wife
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• Reveals his pain at the realisation of the loss of Desdemona, offering an insight into his vulnerability
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• It also plays into the Egyptian view that chaos ensues once the moon as disappeared
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'Murders out of tune/and sweet revenge grows harsh'
• Reminiscent of Iago's metaphor ('my advocation is not yet in tune') and ironically used to point out that
the plan has gone wrong
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I myself'
• Absolves Othello of the deed, showing her complete subservience to him and thus fulfilling the passive
role of women
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Painful reminder that his insecurity led to her death
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'Husband'
• Repeated seventeen times, evoking the image of marriage and love in a scene where both marriages
(Desdemona's and Emilia's) collapse
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'The Moor hath killed my mistress'
• Emilia describes Desdemona not by her name or her attachment to Othello, but in relation to her
relationship with her, revealing their unity
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'I must come forth'
• Reminiscent of his words at the start of the play ('I must be found'): bitter reminder of the change of
character
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• Victorious: as far as we know, he survives
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