🗡️OTHELLO: AO2: SYMBOLS

Question 1

HANKERCHIEF

Answer 1

EUROPEAN medieval + renaissance love poetry, handkerchief= symbol for a woman’s romantic favour
Hankerchief= orginally owned by Egyptian Sorcerer

ORIGINALLY= love-token, represents marriage bond
BUT= now symbolisises illusions Iago is ‘‘casting’’- . Othello
connects the image of entrapment to the handkerchief when he says: “There
is magic in the web of it” (A3)

-Satisfies the ‘‘Occular proof’’ that Othello demands

-Instead of merely representing love, the handkerchief
becomes the definitive test of love.

Question 2

HANKERCHIEF PT 2 (COLOURS)

Answer 2

Handkerchief,= white with red embroidery, MIRRORS the image of the blood-stained sheets
-A usual symbol of love and courting= now a FATALISTIC object that convinces Othello that Desdemona has betrayed him

OR:

Desdemona= EMBODIES PARADOX within design: ‘‘white’’ is in sharp contrast to ‘‘red strawberries’’ of hankerchief- emphasises EXTREME VIEWS of Desdemona
Either she is ‘‘white’’ and innocent (‘‘Sweet Desdemona’’) or ‘‘red’’ and lustful (‘‘strumpet’’)

Question 3

CUCKHOLD

Question 4

CANDLE

Question 5

THE WILLOW SONG

Question 6

WEDDING SHEETS

Answer 6

Marriage bed= love + fertility, this image is prevented and instead of it bringing new life, it bears death instead
Perversion of this symbol= disturbing nature of violence that has taken place

Lodovico: ‘‘Look on the tragic loading of this bed.
This is thy work. - The object poisons sight.’’

-Image’s disturbing quality: it ‘poison’s sight’

'’Thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood be spotted.’’

-Image of the blood-stained sheets invokes both the loss of virginity and the loss of life, linking passion and violence in a way that stresses the dangers of lust

Question 7

ANIMALS