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Lecture 4 Othello the Moor of Venice. Critical Focus on Act 2 Scenes 1 &2. A word about Dramatic Effects. Achieved through language
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Lecture 4 Othello the Moor of Venice Critical Focus on Act 2 Scenes 1 &2
A word about Dramatic Effects • Achieved through language • Provides actors with the means to create the dramatic effect of fear, joy, day, night, tempest-wracked sea, and keep the audience constantly engaged through creation of conflict • The imagination of the audience must respond to the language of the play, creating in their minds the storm for instance in Act 2, Scene 1.
Dramatic Effects created by • Use of blank verse and / or prose • Diction i.e. choice of words and their effects • Choice of imagery used • Choice and structure of sentences • Use of Repetition • Length and structure of a given speech • Use of soliloquy • Cumulative effect of dramatic irony • Dramatic actions (not just words but deeds)
Analysis of dramatic effects (INTERNAL & EXTERNAL) • What intended effect does the choice and form of a word, phrase, line, sentence, speech, image, symbol have upon its actual context in a given scene within the play? • What ‘expected’ effect is the performance of a given Act, Scene, or Dialogue Sequence likely to have upon a viewing audience in an actual theatre?
Re dramatic effect of prose in Scene 3 of Act 2 • Roderigo & Iago are left together and the dialogue moves to the everyday tone of prose • Iago’s main speeches are weighty and deliberately rhetorical, especially in his second long speech to his dupe, Roderigo • With its repeated emphasis on need for money ‘put money in thy purse’
Iago’s cynical logic in Act 1 Scene 3 • Iago’s use of his characteristic vigorous prose creates the effect of “reality” without being realistic • The language is somewhat like common speech yet “raised” above the ordinary level • Has the effect of showing Iago’s confident egoism • And his tendency to reduce everything to the barest physical (love is merely a ‘lust of the blood’) and material terms (his solution to every problem is ‘put money in thy purse’) • Intended to convince R success with D within reach
Dramatic Purpose of Act 2 Scene 1 • To make apparent change in scene setting • To plunge the audience into the crisis of the storm • To provide a picture of the reunion of Othello and Desdemona in Cyprus • To develop the character of Cassio • To introduce Emilia; & other minor characters • To throw further light on the characters of Othello, Desdemona, and Iago • To develop Iago’s plot
Note technique for suggesting the storm and vivid natural background using descriptive blank verse dialogue • First Gentleman talks of “a high wrought- flood…’twixt the heaven and the main” • Montano adds the idea of the wind, speaking “aloud at land”; Says that it was a “blast” that “shook our battlements” • Second Gentleman adds to the picture with “the foaming shore…the chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds…the wind-shak’d surge, with high and monstrous main”
Storm scene (no elaborate scenery) • Upon Cassio’s arrival, audience hears and sees the great contention of sea and skies: “Tempests…high seas…howling winds…gutter’d rocks, and congregated sands” • Dramatic effect: Makes the story of the Turkish disaster credible • Heightens our anxiety for the safety of the voyagers from Venice
Storm functions to create additional suspense • Safe arrival of the main characters remains for some time in question • Othello’s arrival is awaited with some anxiety • This anxiety creates the effect of highlighting the general admiration for his person and achievements • Othello’s delay also allow us (the audience) to sense the depth of Desdemona’s love for her husband
Critical reservations? Re- Desdemona • As Desdemona waits near the harbour for Othello’s arrival • She spends some time in trivial banter with Iago • One might have expected her to go to the harbour front to check on him • Instead of merely interrupting her talk with Iago to ask whether someone else had gone: “Come on, assay…there’s one gone to the harbour?”
There is the further oddity that Desdemona seems able to accommodate herself with surprising ease • To Iago’s vulgar, insinuating line of talk. • Her defense of her conduct may, however, be taken as sincere “I am not merry, but I do beguile / The thing I am by seeming otherwise”
Symbolical significance? • Personal drama of Othello & Desdemona is set against a background of a national crisis, and a crisis at sea. • The storm symbolizes the disorder that soon will rage in the hero’s soul; (dramatic effect) • Dramatically embodies the tempestuous passions that are at the very heart of the play
Dramatic significance of reunion in Cyprus • Almost immediately Othello & Desdemona had to separate after marriage and leave for Cyprus • Othello’s first words on landing are for Desdemona: “O my fair warrior!” • Her first greeting for him is full of sincere emotion: “My dear Othello!”
To see her before him again gives Othello cause to say: “O my soul’s joy!” • He is experiencing “content so absolute” that “if it were now to die // ’Twere now to be most happy” • Their reunion is so full of tenderness and love
Dramatic Irony • Theme of deceitful appearance is intimately connected with use of irony in this play • At the root of all verbal irony is a contrast between what is being said, implied, suggested on the one hand • And what is actually the case, or is meant on the other • E.g. Othello’s and Cassio’s reiterated use of ‘honest’ in relation to Iago • The great ironies of the play have their origin in Iago
Irony and Ironic Effects • The conscious ironist pretends to be unaware that the appearance is only an appearance • The victim of the irony remains unaware of the contrast between the reality and the appearance • In the case of Othello, the audience is in a position to experience intimately the ironist Iago’s diabolical pleasure in his dealings with his victim [Ironic effects] • Iago reveals at every turn what he intends to do with Othello, Roderigo, Brabantio, Cassio • All of whom to a large extent remain in ignorance of his plans for them
Situational & Verbal Irony • Commonest kind of dramatic irony involves a character undertaking a course of action which leads where he least expects it to (victim of irony of situation) • Apart from the web of verbal ironies surrounding the attribution of ‘honest’ to Iago, • Desdemona is sure that Cassio & Othello will soon be at one ‘as friendly as you were’ • Her words do come true but not in the sense she intends; they are united once more but only after her death
Every line of Othello’s first 2 speeches has a double-edged meaning and force • Reunion has an undercurrent of dramatic irony • The Moor’s almost childlike joy at being once more with his wife is full of a sense of tragic impermanence • We are made to feel (dramatic effect) that even as he speaks, the “unknown fate” to which he refers so innocently is preparing the end of his brief happiness
Dramatic effects? • “…for I fear / My soul hath her content so absolute / That not another comfort like to this / Succeeds in unknown fate” • His allusion to his own death falls on our ears with an ominously different sense • From that which it has for the ecstatic Othello • This is the peek of loving joy from which the Moor is to be dragged down • Their reunion defines their happiness before the process of destroying begins…by Iago
Reunion contrasted with closing segment of this scene? • Last part of this scene shows again a contrast in dramatic effect • From the blank-verse dignity and joy of Othello and Desdemona • We sink to the prose, matter-of-fact conversation between Roderigo and IAGO • Iago pushes aside all poetry and beauty of love (which we have just seen / heard) • And reduces Desdemona to that cheapness which will encourage, seduce, and urge on Roderigo
Developing the character of Cassio • Ardent admirer of Desdemona: in his eyes she is “a maid / That paragons descriptions, and wild fame” • She is “the divine Desdemona” “our great captain’s captain” • Holds Othello in the highest regard and speaks of him as a god coming to breathe life-force into Cyprus
Re Cassio • A polished Florentine gentleman; • We note his actions: kisses the hand of Emilia and extends the same courtesy to Desdemona; • But this also suggests his susceptibility to the charms of pretty women (dramatic effects) • Seems not to see evil in people—interprets Iago’s behaviour as that of a typical rough-hewn soldier; vulgar but with a heart of gold • “you may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar”
His elaborate praise of Othello and Desdemona suggests the depth of his regard for both of them • Note his diction is elegant and his manner is courtly • But he is no paragon of virtue • His easy-going nature, his reluctance to say no is fully exploited by Iago • Seldom appears in the play, but his dramatic function is no less important
Hazlitt says • The Moor Othello, the gentle Desdemona, the villain Iago, the good-natured Cassio, the fool Roderigo • Present a range and variety of character as striking and palpable • As that produced by the opposition of costume in a picture
Development of Iago’s plotIago as SPIDERMAN? • As soon as he sees Cassio take Desdemona “by the palm” we can see his mind at work • The kissing of a hand is only a small matter, an act of courtesy on part of Cassio; not with Iago. He will make use of it: • “as little a web as this will ensnare as great a a fly as Cassio”
Note these actions: Cassio smiles on Desdemona and kisses his own three fingers. This is not overlooked by Iago: • “If such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry” • Plans to use this observation to damage the character of Cassio to his advantage
He watches the happiness of the reunion and sees them kiss; plans to destroy their happiness: “O, you are well tuned now, But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music” • He will work on Othello’s mind and put the Moor “At least, into a jealousy so strong, That judgment cannot cure”
Themes? Look for the themes of: • Love versus Hate • Good and Evil • Appearance and Reality • Theme of Revenge
Dramatic Purpose of Act 2 Scene 2 • To remove the tension from the citizens of Cyprus • To celebrate Othello’s nuptials • To increase the sense of the private domestic tension • To make it possible for Iago’s plot against Cassio • To add to the background of coming events
Increasing domestic tension • We hear the proclamation of festivities • But we are not allowed to forget the domestic drama • While the public will have every cause to celebrate • Othello will soon have no cause for revelry • The public revelry will stand as a contrast to the dark tragedy that is about to follow
Making possible Iago’s plot • We recall Iago’s plot against Cassio • He has employed Roderigo to engage in brawl with Cassio in order to discredit him • The relaxed atmosphere of drinking and disorder in the camp at night is just perfect for such a brawl • We recall Iago’s soliloquy at the end of Act 1: “Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light”
Imagery & great image-patterns • Main image is of animals in action and through these the general sense of evil, pain, unpleasantness is increased and kept before the audience • Underlies theme of supernatural evil: the Imagery of Hell and Damnation which has a crucial influence on the tone and atmosphere of the play