Download OTH04 Act 2 Sc 1-2

Lecture 4 Othello the Moor of
Venice
Critical Focus on Act 2
Scenes 1 &2
A word about Dramatic Effects
Achieved through language
 Provides actors with the means to create the
dramatic effect of fear, joy, day, night, tempestwracked sea, and keep the audience constantly
engaged through creation of conflict
 The imagination of the audience must respond to the
language of the play, creating in their minds the
storm for instance in Act 2, Scene 1.
Dramatic Effects created by
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Use of blank verse, patterned sound; and prose
Diction i.e. choice of words; and verbal irony
Choice of imagery used
Choice and structure of sentences;
Use of Repetition;
Length and thought structure of speeches
Use of soliloquy
Cumulative effect of dramatic irony
Dramatic actions (not just words but deeds)
Analysis of dramatic effects
(INTERNAL & EXTERNAL)
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What intended effect does the choice and
form of a word, phrase, line, sentence,
speech, image, symbol have upon its actual
context in a given scene within the play?
What ‘expected’ effect is the performance of
a given Act, Scene, or Dialogue Sequence
likely to have upon a viewing audience in an
actual theatre?
Re dramatic effect of prose
in Scene 3 of Act 2
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Roderigo & Iago are left together and the
dialogue moves to the everyday tone of
prose
Iago’s main speeches are weighty and
deliberately rhetorical, especially in his
second long speech to his dupe, Roderigo
With its repeated emphasis on need for
money ‘put money in thy purse’
Iago’s cynical logic in Act 1 Scene 3
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Iago’s use of his characteristic vigorous prose
creates the effect of “reality” without being realistic
The language is somewhat like common speech yet
“raised” above the ordinary level
Has the effect of showing Iago’s confident egoism
And his tendency to reduce everything to the barest
physical (love is merely a ‘lust of the blood’) and
material terms (his solution to every problem is ‘put
money in thy purse’)
Intended to convince Roderigo – that success with
Desdemona is within reach
Dramatic Purpose of Act 2 Scene 1
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To make apparent change in scene setting
To plunge the audience into the crisis of the storm
To provide a picture of the reunion of Othello and
Desdemona in Cyprus
To develop the character of Cassio
To introduce Emilia; & other minor characters
To throw further light on the characters of Othello,
Desdemona, and Iago
To develop Iago’s plot
Iago, a Machiavellian Malcontent
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Individuals in conflict with their world in society
The main fact in life: struggle
Human affairs about winning and losing
Deceit as a means for a clever individual to achieve
domination
How? Through manipulative use of language
The best language is the most operative
Language a most powerful weapon in the struggle
for primacy in human affairs and relationships
All Principal Characters From Venice to Cyprus
Major dramatic implications at different levels
 A move from a secure social order
 To the random and uncertain conditions that
prevail in Cyprus; the shadowlands of society
 Arrival of Desdemona and Othello in Cyprus
is heralded by a storm
 Symbolizing the passage from relative
security to relative chaos at social as well as
psychological levels;
Cypriot Society
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A remote and enclosed outpost;
Benefits of Venetian civilization not available to the same degree or extent
The principal loser here?
Desdemona
Who having chosen to travel with Othello to
Cyprus has isolated herself from her family
Making her much more potentially exploitable
and vulnerable;
For example: Later on in 4.1
Desdemona while in conversation with
Lodovico, Othello becomes viciously angry and
strikes her;
Desdemona
 ‘I have not deserved this.’
Lodovico
 My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
Though I should swear I saw’t.’
Note technique for suggesting the
storm and vivid natural background
using descriptive blank verse dialogue
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First Gentleman talks of “a high wroughtflood…’twixt the heaven and the main”
Montano adds the idea of the wind, speaking
“aloud at land”; Says that it was a “blast” that
“shook our battlements”
Second Gentleman adds to the picture with
“the foaming shore…the chiding billow
seems to pelt the clouds…the wind-shak’d
surge, with high and monstrous main”
Storm scene (no elaborate scenery)
Upon Cassio’s arrival, audience imaginatively
‘hears’ and ‘sees’ the great contention of sea
and skies:
 ‘High seas, howling winds, / guttered rocks’
 Dramatic effect: Makes the story of the
Turkish naval disaster more credible
 Heightens our anxiety for the safety of the
voyagers from Venice
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Storm functions to create additional suspense
Safe arrival of the main characters remains for some
time in question
Othello’s arrival is awaited for with some anxiety;
Dramatic Effect?
This anxiety highlights the general admiration for his
person and achievements
Othello’s delay also allow us (the audience) to sense
the depth of Desdemona’s love for her husband
Critical reservations? Re- Desdemona
As Desdemona waits near the harbour for
Othello’s arrival  Spends some time in trivial banter with Iago
 Audience might have expected her to go to the
harbour front to check on Othello
 Instead, interrupts her talk with Iago to ask
whether someone else had gone:
“Come on, assay…there’s one gone to the harbour?”
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Ambiguity
There is the further oddity that Desdemona
seems able to accommodate herself with
surprising ease
 Given Iago’s vulgar, insinuating line of talk.
 Her defense of her conduct may, however,
be taken as sincere
“I am not merry, but I do beguile / The thing I
am by seeming otherwise”
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Symbolical significance?
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Personal drama of Othello & Desdemona is
set against a background of a national crisis,
and a crisis at sea.
The storm symbolically foreshadows
the disorder that soon will rage in the hero’s
soul; (dramatic effect)
Dramatically embodies the tempestuous
passions that are at the very heart of the play
Raging tempest in Othello’s mind
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Damn her, lewd minx! O damn her, damn
her! / I will withdraw / To furnish me with
some swift means of death / For the fair
devil. 3.4
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I will chop her into messes 4.1
Dramatic significance of reunion in
Cyprus
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Almost immediately Othello & Desdemona
had to separate after marriage and leave for
Cyprus
Othello’s first words on landing are for
Desdemona: “O my fair warrior!”
Her first greeting for him is full of sincere
emotion: “My dear Othello!”
For Othello to see her again gives
him cause to proclaim:
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“O my soul’s joy!”
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakened
death.’ (Note sound in relation to sense)
He is experiencing “content so absolute” that
“if it were now to die // ’Twere now to be most
happy”
Their reunion is so full of tenderness and
love
Dramatization of Deception and
Dramatic Irony
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Theme of deceitful appearance is intimately
connected with use of irony in this play
At the root of all verbal irony is a contrast between
what is being said, implied, suggested on the one
hand
And what is actually the case, or is meant on the
other
E.g. Othello’s and Cassio’s reiterated use of ‘honest’
in relation to Iago
The great ironies of the play have their origin in Iago
Irony and Ironic Effects
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The conscious ironist pretends to be unaware that
the appearance is only an appearance
The victim of the irony remains unaware of the
contrast between the reality and the appearance
In the case of Othello, the audience is in a position to
experience intimately the ironist Iago’s diabolical
pleasure in his dealings with his victim [Ironic effects]
Iago reveals at every turn what he intends to do with
Othello, Roderigo, Brabantio, Cassio
All of whom to a large extent remain in ignorance of
his plans for them
Situational & Verbal Irony
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Commonest kind of dramatic irony involves a
character undertaking a course of action which leads
where he least expects it to (victim of irony of
situation)
Apart from the web of verbal ironies surrounding the
attribution of ‘honest’ to Iago,
Desdemona is sure that Cassio & Othello will soon
be at one ‘as friendly as you were’
Her words do come true but ironically not in the
sense she intends; they are united once more but
only after her death
Every line of Othello’s first 2 speeches
has a double-edged meaning and force
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Reunion has an undercurrent of dramatic
irony
The Moor’s almost childlike joy at being once
more with his wife is full of a sense of tragic
impermanence
We are made to feel (dramatic effect) that
even as he speaks, the “unknown fate” to
which he refers so innocently is preparing the
end of his brief happiness
Dramatic effects?
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“…for I fear / My soul hath her content so absolute /
That not another comfort like to this / Succeeds in
unknown fate”
His allusion to his own death falls on our ears with
an ominously different sense
From that which it has for the ecstatic Othello
This is the peek of loving joy from which the Moor is
to be dragged down
Their reunion defines their happiness before the
process of destroying begins…by Iago
Reunion contrasted with closing
segment of this scene?
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Last part of this scene shows again a contrast in
dramatic effect
From the blank-verse dignity and joy of Othello and
Desdemona
We sink to the prose, matter-of-fact conversation
between Roderigo and IAGO
Iago pushes aside all poetry and beauty of love
(which we have just seen / heard)
And reduces Desdemona to that cheapness which
will encourage, seduce, and urge on Roderigo
Developing the character of Cassio
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Ardent admirer of Desdemona: in his eyes
she is “a maid / That paragons descriptions,
and wild fame”
She is “the divine Desdemona”
“our great captain’s captain”
Holds Othello in the highest regard and
speaks of him as a god coming to breathe
life-force into Cyprus
Re Cassio
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A polished Florentine gentleman;
We note his actions: kisses the hand of Emilia and
extends the same courtesy to Desdemona;
But this also suggests his susceptibility to the
charms of pretty women (dramatic effects)
Seems not to see evil in people—interprets Iago’s
behaviour as that of a typical rough-hewn soldier;
vulgar but with a heart of gold
“you may relish him more in the soldier than in the
scholar”
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His elaborate praise of Othello and Desdemona
suggests the depth of his regard for both of them
Note his diction is elegant and his manner is courtly
But he is no paragon of virtue
His easy-going nature, his reluctance to say no is
fully exploited by Iago
Seldom appears in the play, but his dramatic
function is no less important
Hazlitt says
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The Moor Othello, the gentle Desdemona,
the villain Iago, the good-natured Cassio, the
fool Roderigo
Present a range and variety of character as
striking and palpable
As that produced by the opposition of
costume in a picture
Development of Iago’s plot
Iago as SPIDERMAN?
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As soon as he sees Cassio take Desdemona
“by the palm” we can see his mind at work
Kissing of a hand - only a small matter, an
act of courtesy on part of Cassio;
However with Iago?
“as little a web as this will ensnare as great a
a fly as Cassio”
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Note these actions: Cassio smiles on
Desdemona and kisses his own three
fingers. This is not overlooked by Iago:
“If such tricks as these strip you out of your
lieutenantry”
Plans to use this observation to damage the
character of Cassio to his advantage
He watches the happiness of the reunion and sees
them kiss; plans to destroy their happiness:
“O, you are well tuned now,
But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music”
 He will work on Othello’s mind and put the Moor
“At least, into a jealousy so strong,
That judgment cannot cure”
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Themes?
Look for the themes of:
 Love versus Hate
 Good and Evil
 Appearance and Reality
 Theme of Revenge
Dramatic Purpose of Act 2 Scene 2
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To remove the tension from the citizens of
Cyprus
To celebrate Othello’s nuptials
To increase the sense of the private
domestic tension
To make it possible for Iago’s plot against
Cassio
To add to the background of coming events
Increasing domestic tension
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We hear the proclamation of festivities
But we are not allowed to forget the domestic
drama
While the public will have every cause to
celebrate
Othello will soon have no cause for revelry
The public revelry will stand as a contrast to
the dark tragedy that is about to follow
Making possible Iago’s plot
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We recall Iago’s plot against Cassio
He has employed Roderigo to engage in brawl with
Cassio in order to discredit him
The relaxed atmosphere of drinking and disorder in
the camp at night is just perfect for such a brawl
We recall Iago’s soliloquy at the end of Act 1:
“Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light”
Imagery & great image-patterns
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Main image is of animals in action and
through these the general sense of evil, pain,
unpleasantness is increased and kept before
the audience
Underlies theme of supernatural evil: the
Imagery of Hell and Damnation which has a
crucial influence on the tone and atmosphere
of the play