Teachers, please feel free to copy and paste the following pages for use in the classroom. If you have difficulty pulling the information off this page, please email aprildg@shakespearefest.org and a hard copy will be sent to you.

CONTENTS:
1. Main Characters & Plot Summary
2. Sources of the Play
3. Publication History
4. Themes
5. Venice and Cypress
6. Meeting Standards in Writing and Speaking

Main Characters

Othello ­ General in the Venice Military & Married to Desdemona
Iago ­ Ensign in the Venice Military & A Villain
Cassio ­ An Honorable Lieutenant in the Military Service of Venice
Desdemona ­ Wife of Othello & Daughter of Barbantio
Emilia ­ Lady-in-Waiting to Desdemona, Married to Iago
Montano ­ Governor of Cypress before Othello
Roderigo ­ A Gentlemen gulled by Iago
Bianca ­ A Courtezan
Barbantio ­ Senator in Venice Government & Father of Desdemona
Lodovico ­ Kinsmen to Barbantio
Duke of Venice

Plot Summary

Act I
In Venice, Iago and Roderigo are having a heated discussion about the recent secret marriage of Othello and Desdemona.  Iago is especially mad that he was passed over for a much deserved promotion in favor of Michel Cassio, an inferior soldier.  They go off to tell Barbantio, Desdemona's father and  Venetian senator, of his daughter's treachery.  He is upset at the news and orders Othello be brought before the Duke for questioning.
Before the Duke, Othello explains that he won Desdemona through stories of his daring exploits, Desdemona enters and confirms that she loves Othello deeply.  The Duke clears Othello of any wrongdoing.  He then sends Othello, who is one of his best generals, to the island of Cypress, because a Turkish fleet is advancing to attack the island.

Act II
On Cypress, news comes to Othello and his party that the Turkish fleet has sunk in a recent storm.  Everyone is overjoyed and heads off to celebrate. Iago talks with Roderigo, and convinces him that Desdemona's love for Othello will soon fade.  Thus the only thing standing in the way of Roderigo wooing Desdemona is Cassio. Iago tells Roderigo that if he were to get Cassio into a fight then Othello would fire Cassio, leaving him with time to court Desdemona.

At the party, Iago begins pushing wine at Cassio, who has no head for drinking.  After much protesting, Cassio finally has a few.  He gets very drunk, very quickly.  He heads outside to get some fresh air.  No sooner is he gone than a shout is heard outside.  Roderigo runs in, pursued by Cassio. Montano, governor of Cypress, tries to stop the combatants, but is wounded by Cassio as Roderigo runs off.  Othello enters and Iago recounts the whole tale.  Othello strips Cassio of command, then helps Montano to the doctor. Cassio, distraught over the fight and its outcome, begs Iago for advice. Iago tells him to seek out Desdemona and get her to speak to Othello on his behalf.

Act III 
Cassio pleads with Desdemona to help him get his position back.  Iago and Othello, who have been checking the battlements, enter just as Cassio leaves.  Iago says "I like not that," and begins to allude to an affair between Desdemona and Cassio.  Iago is vague enough that Othello cannot deny his words.

When Desdemona comes to call Othello to dinner, he says he has a headache. Desdemona brings out a handkerchief, a present from Othello which she holds dear, to try to help her husband.  Othello knocks it from her hand as his jealousy begins to take hold.  After they exit, Iago¹s wife Emilia enters. She picks up the handkerchief saying that Iago has asked her many times to steal it.  When he gives it to Iago, he tells her to speak to no one of this.  Once she is gone, he tells the audience that he is going to plant it
on Cassio. Othello comes in, demanding proof of Desdemona¹s unfaithfulness.  Iago tells him that he has seen a handkerchief in Cassio's hand that looks like the one that Othello gave to Desdemona.  Othello, thinking Iago's intentions to be honest, believes every word. 

Othello sets off to find Desdemona.  When he does he demands to see the handkerchief. When Desdemona can't produce it, Othello says that it is enchanted.  That it will keep a lover faithful as long as they have it, but if it is lost or given away, all bets are off.  When she still can't produce the handkerchief, Othello takes it as proof that Desdemona is cheating on him.

The very end of the act has Cassio entering talking to Bianca, a prostitute with whom he has a relationship.  He gives her a handkerchief that he found in his room and asks her to copy its pattern for him.  Bianca asks if it if from another woman; Cassio says he doesn¹t know where it came from.

Act IV
Othello doesn¹t want to believe that Desdemona is cheating on him and demands more proof of Iago.  Iago has Othello hide nearby as Cassio enters. Iago questions him about his love for Bianca in such a way that Othello overhears only enough to believe that they are talking about Desdemona. Once Cassio leaves, Othello vows that he will kill both Cassio and Desdemona.  Iago, ever the true friend, pledges to help Othello in every way. Iago goes to Roderigo and says that all Roderigo has to do to win Desdemona is to kill Cassio.  Roderigo resists at first, but eventually goes along with Iago, warily.  Othello accuses Desdemona openly of her affair.  She denies it, of course.  Othello is too far along to believe anything and tells her to go to bed and await him there.  He goes out for a walk.

Act V
Outside the tavern where Bianca is staying, Roderigo attacks Cassio. However, he is not very good with a sword, and Cassio wounds him.  Iago darts out from the shadows, stabs Cassio in the leg, and flees before he is seen.  Cassio yells out in pain.  Othello, a few streets over hears this and believes that Iago has killed Cassio, he heads off to Desdemona's bed. 

Iago runs to Cassio¹s side, saying he came running at the sound of Cassio's yelling.  Cassio points out Roderigo as one who attacked him, Iago quickly stabs Roderigo, killing him.  Emilia enters and asks what happened.  Iago sends her to Desdemona. Othello enters sleeping Desdemona¹s bedchamber.  She awakes and Othello questions her as to any unconfessed sins she may still have.  She says she has none.  Othello accuses her of adultery again, and again she denies it. Because she wouldn¹t confess to the affair, Othello kills her by smothering her with a pillow.  Emilia enters and after seeing what has been done, tells Othello that her husband has been leading him astray.  Then she begins calling out for help because Othello has killed Desdemona.  Iago, Montano,
Cassio, and Lodovico, a politician from Venice, enter.  Emilia rats out Iago and Othello tries to kill him but is restrained.  Iago uses the chance to stabs Emilia, killing her.  Othello tries to kill Iago again and only wounds him.  Rather than bee taken back to Venice for a trial, Othello decides it would be better if he killed himself, and does so. He dies next to Desdemona after a last kiss.

Lodovico gives away Othello's possessions, gives governorship of Cypress to Montano, and sentences Iago to death.  He then says that he is going back to Venice with this unhappy news.

Shakespeare and his Sources

While we may like to believe that this is an original story created by Shakespeare, it is not. The source for this play is an Italian prose work written by Giovanni Cinthio. This book, called Hecatommithi, was published in 1565. In his text, Shakespeare compresses time (remember that the entire play takes place in about 3 nights). Shakespeare also changes some of the details of the story: Othello and Iago kill Desdemona in Cinthio's text; Othello is not a nobleman; Iago loves Desdemona, and this provokes his jealousy; Desdemona loves Cassio; Othello is banished from Venice and later killed by one of Desdemona's kinsmen. Shakespeare's tale is also different  because his story is about the tragic downfall of a heroic man blinded by  jealousy. Cinthio's Moor is a story designed to discourage Italian women from marrying men of different ethnic origin.

Publication History

Othello was first performed by the King's Men in 1604. The first publication of the play was in 1622, six years after Shakespeare's death, in a quarto edition. This text is also thebasis for the First Folio edition, which corrected some of the errors found in the quarto edition.

THEMES

Duality
Othello is a play of strong dualities, opposites which co-exist. The characters in the play do not explore the ambiguous, gray areas of life; they tend to divide things into black and white, beginning with the title character. Othello is a black man living in a white man¹s world. Historically, the color black has often been associated with evil, while the color white has often been associated with good, yet in this play, the black Othello is the hero, while the white Iago is the villain. The play inhabits a world in which it is difficult to know what is truth and what is a lie. A world where seeming friends may in fact be dire enemies. A world where acts of honor may destroy the innocent. Other elements of this duality are explored more fully below. As you watch the play, watch for these, and other, fascinating opposites.

Who Can You Trust?
In the play Othello, Iago weaves a web of innuendo and suggestion to entrap and confuse Othello. Likewise, Shakespeare, in writing Othello, carefully doles out bits and pieces of information in such a manner that the audience can easily be misled. And again it is Iago who often feeds us information, which may or may not be true. For example, when Othello falls into a trance, Iago claims it is an epileptic seizure, and that it has happened before. Should we believe this diagnosis? It is Iago who describes Bianca as a
whore, although we see nothing that necessarily proves that assertion. The Othello we meet in the second scene of the play is completely unlike the Othello described in the first scene of the play. In the third scene, the Senators receive letters about the Turkish fleet which contradict each other. Throughout the play, Shakespeare warns us not to believe everything we hear.

Time
The concept of time is not always what it seems to be in Othello. On the surface, the story seems to happen very quickly. The action in Vencie plays almost in real time, less than an hour from the time Brabantio is awakened to the end of the Senate meeting. In Cyprus, it seems that barely 24 hours pass: the ships arrive late in the day; Cassio is demoted late that night; Iago arouses Othello¹s jealousy the next morning; Lodovico arrives that afternoon; and by late that night the play is ended. Yet a closer examination reveals discrepancies in this schedule. More than one character makes comments that suggest they have been in Cyprus for quite some time. Bianca berates Cassio for avoiding her for a week. Emilia notes that Iago has asked her to steal Desdemona¹s handkerchief "a hundred times." And certainly it would take days, if not weeks, for the news of the Turks' defeat to reach Venice and for Lodovico to then sail to Cyprus. This "double time" scheme has fascinated scholars for centuries. Perhaps Shakespeare wished to compress the story to heighten the drama, with little care for the loss of logic. Perhaps he played with the concept of time to suggest the gradual dissolution of Othello¹s reason. Perhaps he wanted certain elements of the play itself to be as untrustworthy as Iago. Whatever his reasoning, in Othello Shakespeare expands and contracts both the clock and the calendar to suit his own needs.

Racism, Hatred Of "The Other"
Othello is a Moor in Venice, a black man in a world of white men. At the time Shakespeare wrote the play, Queen Elizabeth was negotiating with the Moors to fight against the Spanish. Moorish ambassadors commanded a certain amount of respect in London. But when the black population grew uncomfortably large, white Englishmen had no qualms about rounding them up and shipping them off, just as they did Jews and other minorities. Even though Othello is a highly respected and honored public figure, he is not
immune to the common racial prejudices of Shakespeare¹s day. A person who is thwarted in his desires often lashes out at those who are perceived to be different, "the other." Angered at being passed over for promotion, Iago not only disparages Othello¹s color, he notes that Cassio is a Florentine, an out-of-towner. Other characters make assumptions about Othello based on racial stereotypes, assumptions which turn out to be false. Once again, Shakesepeare warns us not to accept things at face value.

Relationships
Unlike other Shakespearean tragedies, whose central issue is often concerned with the royal line of succession, who will be the next king? Othello focuses on a complex web of interpersonal relationships. The play begins with an elopement and an angry father. In the midst of a national emergency, the invasion of the Turkish fleet, the Venetian Senate stops and deals first with this family matter before returning to affairs of state.

That Desdemona accompanies her husband literally to the front lines of battle is extraordinary, to say the least. Remember, Cyprus is a frontier outpost, an army garrison. It is a fortress filled with soldiers, men, and  the presence of women such as Desdemona and Emilia must be unusual in the extreme. It is not surprising that tensions arise around these two women who are, frankly, in a place where they don¹t belong. Remember, also, that with the Turkish fleet drowned in the storm, the war is over even before it begins. Now Cyprus is a fort full of soldiers primed for battle, with nothing to do. Again, it is not surprising that trouble breeds in such a ripe atmosphere. The plot of Othello becomes a succession of secret conversations, misunderstandings, innuendos, trifles as seemingly insignificant as who gives a handkerchief to whom. Yet from these trifles, which are not matters for a king or a prince, but rather the stuff of everyday life, Shakespeare creates a powerful and affecting tragedy.

VENICE  & CYPRESS

Venice
In Shakespeare's day, the Italian city-state of Venice was seen as the epitome of an ordered, rational republic. Its government, with a ruling Duke and a body Senators, was similar to England's government of Queen and Parliament. The beauty of Venice¹s architecture and the romance of its canals were unequalled in the world. In many ways, proud England saw Venice as a "sister", an equal in the world.

But there were differences. England was a Protestant nation, while Venice was Catholic. (The loss of the Turkish fleet in Othello would have reminded London audiences of their defeat of the [Catholic] Spanish Armada less than twenty years earlier.) Venice also had a reputation as a pleasure center, rather like Las Vegas today. There was much gambling. Prostitution was condoned on the theory that it protected the virginity of the daughters of wealth. Venetian businessmen had a reputation for ruthless greed.

Cyprus
For centuries, Cyprus was the last outpost of western civilization, important both strategically and symbolically for its protection of trade routes. Beyond Cyprus to the east was the Turkish Empire. At the time Othello was written, just after 1600, white, Christian, Europe defined itself in opposition to the brown, Moslem, Turkish Empire. The Turks were hated and feared in England. The Turkish army had a reputation for fierceness, cruelty, and valor, and they were felt as a genuine threat should there be a shift in the balance of power.

In 1571, after years of Venetian rule, Cyprus had fallen to the Turks. Shakespeare's audience, watching Othello, would have seen the play, even though it is fictional, in the context of that recent historic event (much as an audience today would view a fictional story set during the fall of Saigon). The tragic end of Othello, governor of Cyprus, would have repercussions beyond its affect on the lives of the characters in the play. Due to the strategic importance of Cyprus and the precariousness of peace, these are events which would have global implications.

Meeting Standards in Writing and Speaking

Discussion Questions

1) Should Iago be executed in the end?

2) Where did Iago go wrong in his plan?

3) Why doesn't Emilia speak up sooner about the handkerchief?

4) Why doesn't Desdemona stand up to Othello?

5) Why doesn't Othello believe Desdemona?

6) How innocent is Othello?

7) Who do you feel more sorry for: Othello or Desdemona? Why?

8) What do you want to happen next?

Essay Questions

1. How do the following characters change between Venice and Cyprus: Othello, Desdemona, Iago, Cassio, Roderigo, Emilia.

2. What do you think of Shakespeare's portrayal of marriage and women in this play? How do these portrayals measure up against women in Shakespeare's other plays?

3. What is Desdemona like? How do you see her decision to marry Othello? How does she behave towards the different men and women in her environment? 

4. What is the world of Venice like? How do you see the Duke? How does Venice treat and relate to outsiders? How are women treated?

5.Discuss the importance of duty (both to one's country and to one's spouse) in relation to the following characters: Othello, Iago, Desdemona, Emilia. Which is more important to Othello? Iago?

6. Throughout the play, Iago is described as being a loyal and honest soldier. Do you think Iago ever was an exemplary military figure? Do you think Iago is pure evil? What do you believe his real motivations are?

7. Why is it significant that Othello is a Moor? If Othello was from a Germanic country instead, would this change your reading of the play? Why and how?

8. Look closely at Iago's speeches, both in soliloquy and to others: what do they reveal about him? Is there anything we can tell about his inner self? Iago's motivation is a notorious critical question. What do you think motivates him?

9. How do Iago¹s speeches affect what we think of other characters? Do they? Why is he such a masterful manipulator? What is it in people he appeals to? Your answer may be different for different characters.

10. How do we see Othello early on this play? What makes him exceptional? How does he seem to relate to his own ethnic and cultural difference from the world of which he has become a part? 

11. What type of a person is Cassio? What class of men does he represent to Iago? What makes him a suitable prey for Iago¹s manipulation? How does he compare to Roderigo?

12. Act 3 scene 3 is known as the "great temptation scene." How does Iago tempt Othello? What rhetorical strategies does he use and what do these strategies reveal about Othello, Venice, and expectations about race and gender?

13. Why does Emilia give Iago the handkerchief? Why is the handkerchief so important? What do different people say about it?

14. Who is Bianca and how does she compare to Desdemona and Emilia?

15. Read the exchange between Emilia and Desdemona in 4.3 closely: what do we learn about the two? How do they differ? Does their class difference enter into our assessment or Shakespeare¹s representation of them? 

16. How do you see Othello's behavior during the murder scene? What does his language tell us about him? How would you respond to the scene if you were watching this on a stage? How might an early modern audience have responded?

17. How do you see Desdemona's death? What is she like during these defining moments? What do you think Othello's last words tell us about him?

18. Think about Iago¹s last words in the play ‹what do they tell us? How do they guide us in interpreting the significance of what happened? What do we (and the Venetians) learn from these events?

Matching

Answer Key: 1-c, 2-a, 3-g, 4-h, 5-i, 6-b, 7-j, 8-f, 9-d, 10-e

Special Thanks to Indiana Repertory Theater for sharing some of their wonderful Study Guide information. > http://www.indianarep.com

                                                                 Last Updated: 05/06/2007                    Copyright Orlando Shakespeare Theater