Othello

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Lingue
Download:	58
Data:	29.01.2001
Numero di pagine:	2
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

OTHELLO

Act. I: - Venice
- Othello and Desdemona are married
- Intrigue of Iago who pretends great loyalty to Othello but makes a plot to have Cassio,Othello’s lieutenant, dismissed.
Act. II: - Cyprus
- Cassio is dismissed and Iago advises him to seek Desdemona’s help
Act. III: - Iago speak about, the probable love affair between Desdemona and Cassio, with Othello.
- Desdemona drops a handkerchief that is found by Emilia, Iago’s wife, and Desdemona’s attendant
- Iago put the handkerchief in Cassio’s room for created the evidence of Desdemona’s unfaithfulness.
Act. IV: - Iago increases Othello’s jealousy, while Emilia say to Othello that Desdemona is innocent.
Act. V: - Othello kills Desdemona but when he understands his fault he kills himself
- Iago is imprisoned and Cassio becomes the governor of Cyprus.
MAIN THEMES
• The jealousy that changed a personality of a good man
• The Othello’s and Desdemona’s love that triumphs over their cultural and racial differences
CHARACTERS
• Othello and Iago are two opposite poles, Desdemona is the object of desire.
• At the beginning Othello is the champion of honesty, Iago has a black soul
• Othello feels emotion, sensation, true and absolute passions; on the contrary Iago invents false passions for himself
• Othello is a linear character, when his harmony is destroyed by chaos, he must re-establish order by eliminating the destructive element, Desdemona. Later when he understand he has killed an innocent woman, for re-establish the order he eliminates the cause of the violated harmony by killing himself
• Desdemona is present as a simple object of desire and jealousy.
• The love between Othello and Desdemona is different. Othello’s love is possession, a simple desire to control his partner; Desdemona feels a more sincere and confident love.
DRAMATIC TECHNIQUES
• DIALOGUE ( Act II, sc I): the meeting between Desdemona and Othello, after the travel to Cyprus
• MONOLOGUE ( Act II, sc III): Iago speak about his plot against Cassio and about the plan for make jealous Othello.
• ASIDE (Act II, sc I): Iago speaks with the audience about his plot.
• STAGE DIRECTION (Act III, sc III): Opposite the castle. Enter Desdemona, Cassio and Emilia.
LANGUAGE
• The contrast between Iago and Othello is underlined by the use of two different language:
- Othello uses the typical Renaissance language full of mythological images and cosmological allusions
- the “voice” of Iago is cynical, brutal and full of litotes which create the false.