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Manipulation in Othello
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A full, in-depth A* essay plan exploring the theme of Manipulation in Shakespeare's "Othello", for the Pearson Edexcel A-Level English Literature.
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ManipulationIntro
- Powerlessness of the audience and dramatic irony, soliloquies from beginning: “I am not what I am” –
embodiment of the devil - Watts: “semiotic manipulation”
- Draper “unholy alliance” – captures nature of relationship to both defy Christian doctrines upholding
Elizabethan society, and also shows how Othello has given in to evil omnipresent within him evil in the
play
- Many argue for Iago’s “motiveless malignity” (Coleridge) due to devilish nature, Greer points out,
“Shakespeare never tells us exactly why Iago hates Othello” but could be due to race
- Manipulates social anxieties of civilised Venetian society and Christian Elizabethan audience through
power of language and expectation of dishonesty from Genesis 2
- Dishonesty was punishable by eternal damnation; would view him as devilish
1) Iago’s manipulation of Roderigo and Brabantio through their hatred of Othello and love for Desdemona
- Roderigo - “put thy money in thus purse”, “thus do I ever make my fool my purse…for my sport and profit”
– appeals to R’s self-interest, social status, desire for more power – Marxist critical perspective, appeals to
greed
- Roderigo - "to the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor" - adjective “gross” = something abhorrent about
Othello’s relationship with Desdemona; verb “clasps” = connotes that Othello is trapping Desdemona
against her will and is being excessively possessive; adjective “lascivious” implies that Othello is lustful
(sinful - one of seven deadly sins); stereotype that Africans were particularly sexual, Burton, 1616
“southern men are hot, lascivious and jealous”
- Brabantio - “beasts with two backs”, “old black ram is tupping your white ewe” – juxtaposes innocence and
“sin” to mock D’s innocence to her father, daughter is being corrupted. Animalistic and sexualised imagery,
monstrous coupling. Renaissance era context; father, patriarchal society, miscegenation is the limit. Leo
Africanus “lusty”, “beastly” – fuels Brabantio’s prejudice which was normal in era due to hypocritical
attitudes to miscegenation in multicultural Venice
- Brabantio - “she has deceived her father and may thee” – Robertson; women obey men. This is the doorway
Iago uses to access and manipulate Brabantio
Iago’s manipulation of Othello
- Iago - calls him “honest Iago”, “Iago is most honest”, “thy husband, honest, honest Iago” – Iago in position
where O should be able to trust his honesty, yet this is a seemingly oxymoronic phrase in the context of the
play - Iago’s reputation as an honest man, referred to as honest over fifty times in the play by almost every
character. Remains steadfast until the very end of the play
- “Strangle her in bed, even the bed she hath contaminated” - manipulation becomes more direct with
increasing use of imperatives to instruct Othello
- “I follow him to serve my turn upon him” – extreme foreshadowing, exposes intentions, dramatic irony;
leads to “honest Iago” and Desdemona being a “strumpet”, accuses her of adultery despite honesty –
Blamires says it is Othello’s inability to understand people’s true natures that leads to the tragic ending
- “The Moor […] thinks men honest that but seem to be so and will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses
are” - Othello’s gullibility, Leo Africanus, 1550, Africans are gullible
- Baum – “with Iago, Shakespeare showed us how one motivated liar can have tremendous power, simply
because of the destructive force of his lies”
- "it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock/The meat it feeds on" - metaphor for jealousy, suggesting
whoever is jealous is consumed by it; humiliate jealous individual and ruin their reputation; colour imagery
links to belief in the four humors (Galen) and excess of jealousy would add green tinge to skin (bile);
everything O now sees will be tainted through the filter of jealousy (and animalistic metaphor foreshadows
O’s descent into animalism) – Greer; Othello’s jealousy is his “enemy within”
Iago as a manipulator
- Great use of dramatic irony by Shakespeare, importance of soliloquies in exposing his deception from
beginning; “I am not what I am”, lying, manipulation – devil (Coleridge “motiveless malignity”). Manages
to deceive people, Machiavellian, devilish – devil traditionally in Elizabethan stereotypes presented as
initially charming/alluring but then realise identity after too late - extreme dishonesty with no guilt YET O
thinks he is “honest Iago”
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