A1

Question 1

❌👤

Answer 1

“I am not what I am”

AO1 - Iago’s deception / Iago x Othello
AO2 - Dramatic irony and foreshadowing deceitful behaviour
- Biblical allusion to God’s declaration in Exodus, “I am that I am”; the reversal portrays Iago as the antithesis of morality
AO3 - Gli Hecatommithi by Cinthio (Addition of characters, exploring psychology)
- The Renaissance; great age of tragedy, Iago considered most sophisticated Machiavellian antagonist
AO5 - Honigmann

Question 2

🏠👧🎒

Answer 2

“Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!”

AO1 - (Women as) Possession / Femininity / Masculinity
AO2 - Asyndeton and tricolon adds emphasis and urgency
- Parallel structure of tricolon reveals commodification of Desdemona through placement of “your daughter”
- Imperative verb “look” shows Iago’s superiority and command of the plot
AO3 - Women in Jacobean society commodities of men
AO5 - French, Honigmann, Loomba

Question 3

🐑⚫️⚪️

Answer 3

“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe.”

AO1 - Prejudice
AO2 - Repetition of ‘now’ evoking a sense of urgency and extremity
- Juxtaposition of ‘black’ and ‘white’ creating colour imagery; antithesis of white which connotes purity, extreme corruption of innocence
- Zoomorphism reduces Othello and Desdemona’s marriage as sexually aggressive and bestial
- Black sheep suggests rarity and ‘outcast’
AO3 - Projects Elizabethan/Jacobean society’s xenophobia and prejudice against ‘outsiders’
- Animal imagery: Great Chain of Being; Othello reduced to bottom of social hierarchy
AO5 - Hall, Loomba

Question 4

👀🤥🧓

Answer 4

“Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: / She has deceived her father and may thee”

AO1 - Deception / Appearance vs. reality
AO2 - Foreshadowing of Othello doubting Desdemona’s faith
- Rhyme: prophetic undertones
- Motif of eyes; deception and reality
AO3 - Venice and women: sexual liberty meant men/husbands were typically suspicious of their wives being involved in infidelity

Question 5

🔥🌌

Answer 5

“Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”

AO1 - Deception / Iago
AO2 - Motif of hell: associates Iago with devilish intentions
- Imagery of monster: foreshadowing of Othello’s downfall
AO3 - SDS, Gli Hecatommithi (soliloquies)
AO5 - Dramatic perspective can make us the villain’s accomplice (Honigmann)

Question 6

⚠️❤️🥹

Answer 6

“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them.”

AO1 - Marriage / Love / Reputation
AO2 - Parallelism of “she loved me” and “I loved her”, emphasises reciprocity and mutuality of their marriage
- Chiasmus created through the ‘criss-cross’ pattern of “she” and “I” visually emphasises the strength of their bond
AO3 - Prejudice and wariness circulating interracial marriage
AO5 - Hall