Practice Test

Over the next two lessons and tonight, you will be completing an essay in response to the following question:

"Othello is a play about good versus evil." Discuss with reference to at least one major character. Your answer should make mention of some of the positioning techniques used in the play besides characterisation. You should also make explicit reference to at least one theme as well.

List of positioning techniques that may be useful:

Binary oppositions – the contrasting of two oppositional characteristics, in which one half of the binary is always privileged (seen as good/ right/ better).

Soliloquy/ Soliloquies – speaking without or regardless of hearers/ other characters.

Asides – a brief comment under the breath of the character or to the audience that reveals the characters true feelings/ intent.

Monologues – a lengthy speech that usually gives the perspective of the character on one or several topics.

Sequencing – the order of events.

Point of View – whose perspective a scene/ episode is mainly seen from/ reported from.

Imagery – lines in which there are visual images (used to colour our opinion of a character/ event positively or negatively).

Foreshadowing – when characters’ words pre-empt/ warn of an ominous outcome as a result of a particular action/ personality trait. Eg: The scene with the duke in Act 1 has many moments of foreshadowing (the Duke speaks about the negative outcomes of jealousy, Brabantio warns Othello about Desdemona, the discussion of race etc).

Repetition – repeated lines/ words/ ideas/ images.

Naming  -  eg: the reduction of Othello to racial references (Moor) at certain points, or to his position (General) at other points. The reference to Iago as a spotted dog etc.

Humour – funny lines that make the audience align with what a character says… although sometimes this shows how ‘laughable’ the character’s view is/ discredits it.

Irony – like rain on a wedding day… this has many meanings, but in Othello we can apply it to the way in which statements/ events that characters think will never occur/ be true DO occur/ are true (“is he not jealous?”). Also, statements/ events which they believe are true/ will occur (Iago’s “I love you”(s))…

Aristocracy’s (Aristocracies’) Reflections - When a royal/ upper class character delivers the final reflection on an event/ characteristic (often in flowery, metaphoric language or rhyme, perhaps with a final couplet). This positioning technique reflected the Elizabethan assumption that those ranked higher in class/ hierarchy were wiser. Elizabethan audiences would accept such characters’ perspectives as ‘true’.

Deaths – honourable deaths, dishonourable deaths, sacrificial deaths, redemptive suicides, drawn-out torture… consider the death of your various representative character and how this punishes/ rewards (well, idealises) them for the characteristic they epitomise. What message does this send the audience about the trait/s they represent?

List of themes that we have discussed in class:

Jealousy

Race

Deception

Reputation

Revenge

Reality vs Perception

Love