Othello: Themes (WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature)

Othello: Themes

Exam responses that discuss the key themes of the play in a nuanced way are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. AO1 and AO2 require that your response is “sensitive” and “evaluative”, and the most effective way to demonstrate these qualities is by considering different perspectives on the themes of the text in relation to the question being asked.

For your extract-based question, higher marks are awarded to responses that can locate the extract within the wider play and discuss the events that preceded and followed the lines provided. Your essay question, meanwhile, will award top marks to responses that can discuss ideas from across the play. It is therefore useful to be able to chart the development of these themes across Othello as a whole - something that the notes below will help you to do.  

Below are some of the most important ideas that might be explored in William Shakespeare’s Othello. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to identify other ideas within the text.

• Jealousy

• Love and relationships

• Race and appearance

Jealousy

An audience might see jealousy as the driving motivation behind the events of Othello. It’s important to remember that jealousy has two meanings, both of which are relevant to the play. Jealousy can mean being resentful of somebody’s achievements, possessions, or advantages, as Iago is of Cassio and Othello. Jealousy also takes the form of overprotectiveness, of fiercely guarding one’s possessions, just as Othello guards Desdemona and the Venetian’s jealousy defend the island of Cyprus from their Turkish foes

Shakespeare explores sexual jealousy and professional jealousy through several different relationships in Othello: Iago is jealous of Othello’s military success and Cassio’s promotion; Roderigo is jealous of Othello’s relationship with Desdemona; Othello becomes jealous when he believes that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio; even Bianca becomes jealous when she believes that Cassio has a new lover. Through these relationships, Shakespeare shows how jealousy’s malign influence can ultimately consume love, friendship, nobility and honour.

Knowledge and evidence:

• Iago’s jealousy is initially based on a professional slight, but he is later revealed to have motives related to sex as well:

  • In Act 1, Scene 1 he complains that Cassio has been promoted instead of him even though he is “worth no worse a place”

  • He later implies that his hatred of Othello is rooted in rumours that Iago’s wife, Emilia, has been unfaithful to him with Othello:

    • He claims that it is “thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets / He has done my office”, although the audience never find out if this is true or not

    • The truth does not matter to Iago, whose hatred leads him to take “mere suspicion” as “surety”

• Othello’s change in character over the course of the tragedy reveals how jealousy can corrupt even those who are resistant to it:

  • In the first Act Othello dismisses Brabantio’s warning that Desdemona may deceive her husband, replying “My life upon her faith” 

  • Iago slowly manipulates Othello’s trusting nature by “practising upon his peace and quiet” to convince him of Desdemona’s infidelity:

    • Perhaps because of his own suspicions of Othello and Emilia, Iago understands the terrible power of this psychological torture 

  • By Act 3 Othello is prepared to “tear” Desdemona “all to pieces” without even any concrete proof of her betrayal

• Roderigo is a spurned suitor of Desdemona who is jealous that she chose to marry Othello:

  • Manipulated by Iago, he believes that Iago can help him to win Desdemona’s affections

  • Roderigo’s jealousy blinds him to Iago’s true intentions and he does whatever the ensign tells him:

    • He becomes Iago’s pawn in bringing about Cassio’s downfall

    • He gives money and precious jewels to Iago, only realising too late that he has “wasted” his fortune

• Sexual jealousy in particular is explicitly connected to madness, and shown to make men murderous and violent:

  • Emilia describes marital jealousy in violent terms when she tells Desdemona how husbands are prone to “break out in peevish jealousies”

  • Iago aims to whip Othello into “a jealousy so strong / That judgement cannot cure”

  • In Act 4 Othello collapses into a fit of “savage madness” and “foams at the mouth”

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare warns his audience of the perils of jealousy, which is presented as ultimately self-defeating and never satisfying:

  • When Othello realises too late that his jealousy was based on lies, he turns his sword on himself

  • Similarly, Roderigo is led by jealousy to place trust in the man who abuses and eventually murders him

  • Iago is sentenced to torture in a fitting punishment for the psychological and emotional torture he has inflicted

• Throughout the tragedy Shakespeare links jealous behaviour to images of consumption to give the impression that jealousy is all-consuming and irrational:

  • Iago famously describes jealousy as a “green-eyed monster, which doth mock / The meat it feeds on” and devours those who succumb to it:

    • Iago returns to this idea when he describes Othello as “eaten up” by jealousy in Act 3

  • Roderigo “wasted myself out of my means” in the pursuit of jealous vengeance

  • Even Othello threatens to chop Desdemona “into messes” (i.e. the dishes of food eaten by military personnel)

Love and relationships

If revenge is the central motivation in Othello, love is usually the catalyst. Shakespeare depicts several different kinds of love in the play, including romantic, sexual, and platonic. These relationships take place against the background of an intensely patriarchal society that reflected Shakespeare’s own. In Othello’s world, as in Shakespeare’s, codes of conduct for men and women were very different: men exercised all of the power in their personal relationships, whereas women were treated figuratively (and legally) as objects. The connection between gender and power leads to double standards by which, for example, Cassio is allowed to engage the services of courtesans but Bianca is laughed at for hoping that he will marry her. This is also why Desdemona’s alleged infidelity is punished so severely: the idea of a woman possessing any sexual agency is a threat to the patriarchy.

Knowledge and evidence:

• At the beginning of the play the audience are presented with a depiction of powerful womanhood as Desdemona chooses her own husband:

  • Brabantio considers this as a crime against him and his property, as though by marrying his daughter, Othello has stolen from Brabantio:

    • Othello later echoes Brabantio’s patriarchal language when he accuses Desdemona of enjoying “stolen hours of lust” with Cassio

  • By deceiving her father and asserting independence, Desdemona makes the power struggle between men and women a central focus of the play

• The relationship between Othello and Desdemona is one of true love, and it is initially harmonious:

  • Othello reveals to Brabantio that Desdemona “loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them”:

    • Their love is reciprocal, and based on mutual and respectful understanding

    • They seem to love one another because of, not despite, the differences between them

  • This makes them different to other couples in the play:

    • Emilia is cynical and understands that wives are merely “food” for husbands

    • Bianca is treated as a “bauble” by her “customer”, Cassio

  • One of the motives Iago gives for wanting to come between Othello and Desdemona is because he cannot bear to see two lovers so “well tuned”

• Iago’s overwhelming hatred is the counterpoint to the love between Othello and Desdemona:

  • Iago displays a fierce misogyny throughout the play:

    • He loathes the idea of women having power over men

    • He shows contempt for Othello for being “enfettered” to Desdemona

    • All of the women in the play, Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca, are used by Iago as tools to facilitate his revenge

  • He ultimately “enfetters” Othello’s mind in exactly the same way that he argues that Desdemona will:

    • He does this while pledging himself to Othello: “I am your own for ever”

    • His pledge may be a lie, but some interpret this as Iago desiring Othello for himself and being jealous of Desdemona

• The romance between the central lovers is also undermined by Emilia’s cynicism:

  • Emilia argues that men are all “stomachs” and women “are in the play

  • They also foreshadow how both of the wives in the play are ultimately victims of abusive relationships

• The relationship between love and male violence reaches its zenith when Othello murders Desdemona:

  • Othello frames the murder as an act of love and “honour”

  • He kisses Desdemona before killing her on their marital bed

  • He claims that his greatest mistake was in loving “not wisely, but too well”

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• While Shakespeare presents women in a sympathetic light in Othello: 

  • He depicts Desdemona as faithful and loving in a world that defines women as either chaste or prostitutes

  • All of the female characters are unjustly silenced by the end of the play:

    • Bianca accepts Cassio’s authority and her relative powerlessness

    • Bianca is also framed (briefly) by Iago for the attempted murder of Cassio

    • Desdemona is murdered by Othello on the basis of unproven suspicion

    • Iago kills Emilia for speaking out against him

  • These women are only ever seen in relation to the male characters, who have absolute power over their lives and deaths

• Shakespeare’s message though, is less a critique of the patriarchy and more about the perils of jealousy and placing blind trust in the wrong people:

  • With her final breath, Desdemona defends her love for Othello

  • Even after killing his wife and himself, Othello is still lauded as heroic and “great of heart”

Race and appearance 

Although Othello is known as “the moor of Venice”, it is not possible to define Othello’s race exactly, and perhaps purposefully so. In early modern England, people from any part of Africa could be termed “moors”, which means that the term encompassed an enormous range of different languages, cultures, and skin colours. Othello’s specific racial origins are far less important than the simple idea that his skin colour marks him as different to the rest of Venetian society. Shakespeare  foregrounds Othello’s race in ways that make him a compelling protagonist. Othello’s position as an outsider is presented both positively and negatively at various points, and gives audiences the sense of a character torn between two worlds, or at conflict with himself. 

Knowledge and evidence:

• In the first scene of the play, Shakespeare presents deeply negative views of Othello’s race:

  • Roderigo and Iago horrify Brabantio with their reference to Desdemona taking “an old black ram” and a “Barbary horse” as her lover

  • Brabantio also accuses Othello of having used witchcraft to entrance Desdemona:

    • The views of Iago, Roderigo, and Brabantio are undermined in the first instance by the fact that the audience are encouraged by Shakespeare to question the judgement of these speakers

• In Act 1, Scene 3 however, Shakespeare contrasts the negative views of race with Desdemona and Othello’s positive perspective on mixed-race marriages:

  • Desdemona tells her father that she “saw Othello’s visage in his mind”:

    • She urges her father to look see that racial differences do not matter in love

    • Her words also suggest that Desdemona herself looked past Othello’s race because his stories excited her so much

    • Her views of Othello’s race would have been considered radical by Shakespeare’s less racially tolerant Jacobean audience

  • Othello tells Brabantio and the Venetian nobles that his race was a factor in Desdemona’s active and positive choice:

    • He says that “she had eyes and chose me”

• The fact that Othello has risen to the important position of general suggests that Venice is prepared to overlook issues of race if outsiders can demonstrate their value to society:

  • The Duke of Venice tells Brabantio that Othello is “more fair than black”:

    • These words are, though, ambiguous: is the Duke suggesting that skin colour does matter and Othello is the exception? Or is he simply making the point that Othello belongs among the Venetian nobility?

• Desdemona is ultimately proven to be wrong about Othello when he reveals his capacity for jealousy and violence:

  • It is important to note, though, that Shakespeare never suggests that Othello’s jealousy is because of his race

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Although negative racial descriptions of Othello are alarming and prominent throughout the play, it is important to note that they are all shown to be inaccurate:

  • In the first few Acts of the play, Othello is anything but the cruel, animalistic black man described by Iago

  • Only after Othello has been tricked by Iago does Othello begin to show some of the negative aspects of the stereotype:

    • His fixation on the handkerchief verges on superstition

    • He is passionate, and cries several times before becoming violent

  • In the final scene, Othello’s captors do not blame Othello’s race for his situation, only his “rash and most unfortunate” actions

• Deceit is more dangerous than skin colour, especially when villainy hides in plain sight:

  • One of the first things the audience learn about Iago is: “I am not what I am”:

    • This gives the impression of someone who is used to lying, deception, and hiding his true intentions from others

  • Despite the association in Shakespeare’s time between blackness and the devil, only Iago is referred to as a devil at the end of the play

Sources: 

Shakespeare, William (1975). Othello. Oxford: Clarendon Press