Othello-Alesha Jeter
ITR 3
Summary:
In Mrs. Bickert’s class, acting fundamentals, we are working on our Shakespeare monologues. My character is called Goneril, from the play King Lear. King Lear is a story about how the betrayal of a man’s daughters causes him to go insane. I didn’t like it very much because it was confusing and all over the place. The play I read that is similar to King Lear was Othello. Othello was written between 1601 and 1604 and it is a tragedy. The story centers on four characters, Othello, Desdemona, Iago, and Cassio, and contains love, betrayal, and revenge, three themes that King Lear also contains.
Othello takes place in Venice, Italy, and starts off with an argument between Iago and another character named Roderigo,
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I
Return those duties back as are right fit—
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply when I shall wed
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
In Othello, love is a large part of the conflict in the story. Iago uses it to his advantage a lot in the play. Othello is obviously mad with love for Desdemona, so when Iago tells him all these lies about her and Cassio being secretly together, it makes him go crazy. He acts coy about it, making it seem like it’s really not that bad, though he knows that that will make it look even worse to Othello.
IAGO
Will you think so?
OTHELLO
Think so, Iago?
IAGO
What,
To kiss in private?
OTHELLO
An unauthorized kiss!
IAGO
Or to be naked with her friend in bed
An hour or more, not meaning any
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He uses the love that people feel towards each other to his advantage during a lot of the play. Another example is with Roderigo. Roderigo is completely in love with Desdemona and Iago uses that knowledge to get what he wants. He tells Roderigo that in exchange for money, he will make sure that Desdemona ends up with him. This of course never happens. Another important theme in both stories is the theme of revenge.
It’s definitely more important in Othello than it is in King Lear, but it is still present in both. For example in King Lear, there is a character named Edmund. He is the illegitimate son of a man named Gloucester and he has a brother named Edmund, the legitimate son of Gloucester. Edmund hates that so he seeks revenge on his brother and his father. He is sort of similar to the character of Iago in Othello. He turns his father against Edgar, telling his father that edgar plans to seize power over the estate. Later on, Edmund pretends he was attacked by Edgar, and his father disowns him and he becomes an