Each group will respond to one of the following
questions,
using specific references to the text to support your answers.
| 1. | A critic said:
"You could strike out every reference to [Othello's] black skin and the play would be essentially the same. Othello's trouble is that he is an outsider. He is not a Venetian....The Senate has no consciousness whatever of his colour.... It simply has no place in their minds." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? |
| 2. | Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) said that Iago displayed a "motiveless malignancy." What do you think? Why does Iago do what he does? |
| 3. | "Iago only has to get [Othello] to suspect
that Desdemona
does not [really love him as the person he really is], to
release
the repressed fears and resentments of a lifetime, and the question of
what she has done or not done is irrelevant."
Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? What are his repressed fears and resentments? |
| 4. | "The handkerchief is the symbol of a
woman's
power, her loving, civilizing, sexual power." Do you agree
or
disagree with this statement? Why? (See 3.3.307-45, 3.3.454-87,
3.4.50-114)
See Jstor essay  |
| 5. | Is Othello a tragic hero? Why or why not? |
