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Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. To what extent
does Othello’s final speech affect our assessment of him? What is
the effect of his final anecdote about the Turk?
2. What role
does incoherent language play in Othello? How does
Othello’s language change over the course of the play? Pay particular
attention to the handkerchief scene in Act III, scene iii, and Othello’s
fit in Act IV, scene i.
3. Analyze
Desdemona’s role. To what extent is she merely a passive victim
of Othello’s brutality? How does her character change when she is
not with Othello?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Discuss the role that race
plays in Shakespeare’s portrayal of Othello. How do the other characters
react to Othello’s skin color or to the fact that he is a Moor?
How does Othello see himself?
2. Discuss the importance of
setting in the play, paying close attention to physical details
that differentiate Venice from Cyprus and that define the particular
character of each location as it pertains to the plot of the play.
3. Discuss the role of Emilia.
How does her character change during the course of the play? Pay
particular attention to moments when Emilia decides to be silent
and when she decides to speak. What is the effect of her silence
about the handkerchief? Do we forgive this silence when she insists
on speaking in spite of Iago’s threats in the final scene?
4. Do a close reading of one
of Iago’s soliloquies. Point to moments in the language where Iago
most gains an audience’s sympathy and moments where he most repels
it. Pay close attention to the way in which Iago develops arguments
about what he must and/or will do. To what extent are these arguments
convincing? If they are convincing and an audience’s perception
of Iago is sympathetic, what happens to its perception of Othello?
5. Analyze one or more of the
play’s bizarre comic scenes: the banter between Iago and Desdemona
in Act II, scene i; the drinking song in Act II, scene iii; the
clown scenes (Act III, scenes i and iv). How do these scenes echo,
reflect, distort, or comment on the more serious matter of the play? |
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