Write a response to one of the questions below about
William Shakespeare’s “Othello."
The response is a mini-essay in which you should:
·
start with a thesis and
then
·
back it up with
evidence, being sure you
·
explain how the evidence
supports your thesis.
You may want to include the ideas of another student (which you
agree OR disagree with), but if you do, be sure your response is
self-contained--that is, that someone can understand the point you are reacting
to without having to refer to another document.
Points: 50 possible. (If your response is on time and well-written, and includes
thesis, evidence and explanation); 5 points off for every day late.
Directions: Post your response as a Reply to this
message, but make sure the subject heading gives the number of the question
below you are responding to.
- Is Othello’s
self-assessment in his final speech a valid one? Or is he something else
(a stupid dupe? A tragic victim?).
Be sure to include evidence from early in the play (before Iago
starts administering his poison), from the middle, and after when he vows
to kill Desdemona. (For some ideas
from three different critics, see http://www.iupui.edu/~elit/shakes/oth/fothcri.html
- Iago’s motivation has
puzzled critics for years. He says
he is unhappy because he has been passed over for promotion and because he
suspects Othello has cuckolded him (that is, slept with Emilia). But why
this overkill? Some have seen Iago
representing nearly devilish “motiveless malignity” or evil; others see
his revenge rooted in class hatred and race prejudice, or in cold love of
manipulation. Explain your view of
Iago’s motivation, with support from at least two separate pieces of
evidence from the play. Then explain what worries you most about your
view—what you’d like to omit from the play, what doesn’t seem to fit. (Seeing both sides is a powerful tool
in critical thinking!)
- Discuss Desdemona’s
“journey” in the play—from her elopement, to accompanying Othello to
Cyprus, her reaction to his jealousy, and including her puzzling last
lines when asked who has killed her: “Nobody—I myself. Farewell./ Commend
me to my kind lord” (4.ii.125-26).
- Much of the play concerns
men's perceptions of the sexual behavior of women. In addition to
Desdemona, we have Emilia, who has a conventional Venetian marriage
(although she and Iago are of lower social standing), and Bianca, a woman
who makes her living through sex. Discuss Desdemona and at least one of
her “foils”—that is, what do the situations and reactions of Emilia and/or
Bianca tell you about Desdemona and her reactions?
- Both Cassio and Iago give speeches about
"reputation." Cassio feels it is based on the reality of one's
behavior, something like a scorecard for the soul. He bewails its loss
after he has been fired for drunken brawling while on guard duty: "O I have lost my reputation! I have lost
the immortal part of myself, and what remains is beastial" (2.3.261-63). Iago tries to sound noble to Othello about
"reputation," but with terrible dramatic irony we know the truth
about him and the manipulative, vengeful purposes to which he puts his own
reputation:
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the
immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals
my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing;
'T was
mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that
filches from me my good name
Robs me of
that which not enriches him,
And makes
me poor indeed.
(3.3.155-61)
Here
"reputation" is more like a commodity that can be stolen, in contrast
to Cassio's "reputation," which seems more dependent on inner worth.
Iago's "reputation" lies in the control of "what people
say." Cassio's lies in what a person does. What is Othello’s concept of
reputation—his and Desdemona’s? Does it
change in the course of the play? If
so, how?
- Agree or disagree with the following statement
and explain your view: In 21st-century