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domestic tragedy

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because of the shift in setting, this means that Othello is tragically isolated in an environment he is not aware of from Venice to Cyprus. Therefore, he is not comfortable with the customs and attitudes of the country. This als gives the character of Iago the opportunity to imput in his breakdown

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Desdemona is also a victim, murdered by her husband for a crime she does not commit, and plotted against by Iago, perhaps for challenging the authority of men. A woman of spirit and independence who knows her own mind. She defies the desires of her father to marry a man of his choice and she marries the black soldier Othello. In Cyprus she is manipulated by a series of male figures, and strangled in her bed by Othello. 

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Desdemona is also a victim, murdered by her husband for a crime she does not commit, and plotted against by Iago, perhaps for challenging the authority of men. A woman of spirit and independence who knows her own mind. She defies the desires of her father to marry a man of his choice and she marries the black soldier Othello. In Cyprus she is manipulated by a series of male figures, and strangled in her bed by Othello. 

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Start of the play - his openness is evident where as by the end of the play he is hiding in the shadows and in the dark

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Act 2 in bedroom- 'I must be open'- by act 4, he is hiding behind in the shadow... contrast between the openess of Othello and then the secrecy of Iago

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In Othello it can be argued that there are multiple victims. Desdemona is a victim as she is murdered by Othello for a crime that she did not commit.
Emilia is also a victim of love and abuse from men.

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Othello is initially elevated as a character because before we meet him as an audience, he is presented in a negative, wild manner by Iago - this ultimately makes his fall even greater as he falls off his great pedestal

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It ispolitically controversial and dangerous, challenging 17th century European cultural norms of what it means to be noble and moral.

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Like other tragic heroes, he also has a fatal flaw –jealousy – which Iago exploits to the full. His flaw connects Othello with audiences who also might have felt the stab of the green eyed monster. Othello’s fate is perhaps more likely to inspire pity and fear because of that connection.

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For many, Iago is the ultimate stage villain – calculating, manipulative, clever and ruthless. Despite Coleridge’s claim that Iago’s soliloquies reveal ‘the motivehunting of motiveless malignity’, Iago’s role is more complex.

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Emilia seems to be the the victim of both the oppression and abuse of women, and the victim of love too. However she seems to go against males much more than Desdemona does.

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Like other tragic heroes, he also has a fatal flaw –jealousy – which Iago exploits to the full. His flaw connects Othello with audiences who also might have felt the stab of the green eyed monster. Othello’s fate is perhaps more likely to inspire pity and fear because of that connection.

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Desdemona had challenged the patriarchal order in marrying Othello, had shown a free and open spirit but she is murdered. The patriarchal attitudes that existed at the start of the play are reinforced by Cassio’s appointment. Therefore how safe is the future with him?

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The final judgments rest with the audience. We are left to think about our emotions and about moral, social, political and philosophical issues.

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Othello’s fall from nobility and grace, from articulate general to brainwashed puppet of Iago, speaking obscenely and incoherently (Lie with her? Lie on her...Pish! Noses, ears and lips. Is’t possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O devil!) is the play’s driving tragic impulse.

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To elevate his status, Shakespeare gives him musical language.

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Iago is the ultimate stage villain – calculating, manipulative, clever and ruthless. Despite Coleridge’s claim that Iago’s soliloquies reveal ‘the motive hunting of motiveless malignity’, Iago’s role is more complex - He certainly is the most vill

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Yet, in terms of the tragedy, Othello is a worthy hero, despite Iago’s attempts to blacken his name at the start of the play. Although Iago claims Othello loves ‘his own pride and purposes’ and rails bitterly against what he feels is Othello’s poor judgment and mistreatment of him, when the audience meet Othello for the first time he is measured, dignified and commanding.

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Othello’s position as tragic hero is interesting and complex. Although, as ageneral, he holds a high military rank in the Venetian army, in terms of his tragicstatus he is not a European king or a European nobleman and so in one way is afigure much closer to that of an ‘ordinary’ man than most of Shakespeare’s othertragic heroes

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Othello’s position as tragic hero is interesting and complex. Although, as ageneral, he holds a high military rank in the Venetian army, in terms of his tragicstatus he is not a European king or a European nobleman and so in one way is afigure much closer to that of an ‘ordinary’ man than most of Shakespeare’s othertragic heroes

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Emilia is again, along with Desdemona, a victim of love but Emilia is also another victim of the abuse physically and emotionally of women enforced by men

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despite his undoubted cunning and desire for revenge against Cassio and Othello, Shakespeare does not present Iago as having a clear plan from the start of the play: he is more an opportunistic villain whose ideas gather momentum as he tastes success.

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Othello has military power but no status in Venetian society because of his colour and race; his ‘life and being’ is not European. He is a black man, a Moor and was sold to slavery.

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Shakespeare suggests in the first act that she is a woman of spirit and independence who knows her own mind -  She defies the expectations and desires of her father to marry a man of his choice. Instead she marries the black soldier Othello and determines to travel with him to Cyprus. There she is manipulated by a series of male figures ( strong and independent) , and strangled in her bed by Othello.

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For many, Iago is the ultimate stage villain – calculating, manipulative, clever and ruthless

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In the first Act which is set in Venice, Shakespeare establishes an ordered world in which Iago’s attempts at disruption are easily thwarted. The movement to Cyprus and the re-location of the characters there allows Iago to work more successfully, ensnaring all in the weaving of his plot.

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The play includes many generic conventions of tragedy. A tragic hero whose ultimate downfall is his pride and

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The main action of the play is set in Cyprus, away from the known, civilised world of Venice, where capitalism thrives.

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Othello is a play with many victims - Desdemona is also a victim, murdered by her husband for a crime she does not commit -

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The setting of Cyprus allows Shakespeare to place his characters in a world without the boundaries that would be imposed upon them by an established city state

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Othello is a play that is a mainstream Shakespearean tragedy and therefore is an obvious text for Paper 1.

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The resolution is uncomfortable and with the deaths of Desdemona, Emelia and Othello, there is a terrible sense of waste.

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We are left to think about our emotions and about moral, social, political and philosophical issues

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politically controversial and dangerous, challenging 17th century European cultural norms of what it means to be noble and moral.

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It is both a tragedy of love and a revenge tragedy; it is also the tragedy of what happens when soldiers are hotly prepared for war but have no war to occupy them.

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Othello is a domestic tragedy - it is a tragedy of marriage:
Othello and Desdemona's love is passionate which is deemed a threat to the rules established by patriarchal order