Key Ideas

• Love, Historical Context and Historicism (Act 5, Scene 2)

  At this point there is still some doubt as to whether Othello has reached a point of anagnorisis.
• Parental roles

  • Othello, who as her lover, took on the role of Desdemona’s protector, and for whom she is waiting like a little girl, wanting to be tucked up and kissed goodnight, doubly betrays Desdemona and her father figure, who asks her if she has said her prayers—a travesty of parental concern.
• A gender war

  • Othello claims to be protecting other men by killing Desdemona (cf. the Willow song’s ‘You’ll couch with moe [sic] men’) is either self-delusion or an indication that he, like Iago, now sees this as a gender war.
• Orgasm

  • Othello forcing her down on the bed, lying on top of her, and silencing her in a breathless spasm is a horrible travesty of the consummation of love the previous night (the word ‘die’ was used then as a form of orgasm).
• Desdemona's soul

  • It is an un-Christian act which jeopardises both their souls: he kills her in a moment of wrath, provoked by another visual misinterpretation (her tears), and does not allow her time to pray.
  • Little love is shown at this point either for her physicality but also, more worryingly, for her soul.
• Anagnorisis

  • At the end Othello blames fate (‘ill-starred wretch’ and ‘error of the moon’) rather than himself: his claims to have loved ‘too well’ and to be an ‘honourable murderer’ are self-exculpating.
  • At this point there is still some doubt as to whether Othello has reached a point of anagnorisis.
• Devil

  • The act of murdering his great love Desdemona represents killing the better (perhaps Christian?) half of himself.
  • This means that he still has to deal with the enemy Turk, which he fails to do in his strangely unsuccessful attempts to kill the ‘devil’ Iago, but he does succeed in killing himself.
• Tragedy (Act 5, Scene 2)

  Dr Samuel Johnson found the tragedy of this scene to be so moving to be unendurable.
• Imagery

  • All that was white has been besmirched with blackness, and as we might expect at the end of a tragedy, ‘Chaos is come again’, with much light / dark imagery to emphasise this.
  • With the announcement that ‘yonder foul murder’s done’, the public and private, war and love, Christian and Turk are subsumed into each other as tragic disorder reigns.
• Emilia

  • Desdemona comments on Othello gnawing his lip, his rolling eyes and ‘bloody passion’, and he is overcome with wrath when she weeps for Cassio’s supposed murder.
  • Emilia is forthright in her condemnation of Othello’s act and her racism emerges in the language of ‘dirt’.
  • It is her tragedy as well as Othello’s and Desdemona’s; she made mistake, sees a loved one dead, and ends by bravely defying slander and conspiracy at the cost of her life.
• Brabantio's death

  • A key piece of minor information comes when Gratiano delivers the news that Brabantio is dead.
  • There is almost no reaction from the characters at this point, but the announcement of his death reinforces several aspects of the tragedy.
• Aspects of tragedy

  • First of all, his last speech has been apparently confirmed by events.
  • Secondly, his death is part of the wider collapse and chaos of Venetian society.
  • Finally, Desdemona has now lost her father figure, the only one who actually tried to protect her.
• Iago's downfall

  • Iago feels confident that he cannot be blamed for someone else’s foolish credulity, makes the mistake of thinking he is untouchable, and that he can rely on his wife’s continuing obedience to stay silent: it is fitting that he should be undone by a woman, and by his dupe Roderigo, who has convenient (albeit unlikely) letters in his pocket to convict Iago.
• Refusal to speak

  • Othello makes the appeal: ‘Iago knows’ but Iago withdraws his knowledge with ‘what you know, you know’—which is nothing.
  • The villain’s refusal to speak at the end is unusual, when compared to other Shakespearean plays, but it does fit his characterisation.