Language & Imagery

• Imagery

  Shakespeare ‘s imagery is worth studying in detail to see how it connects to the theme of love and the genre of tragedy.
• Images

  • Othello has a set of its own recurring group of images, in addition to the typical and traditional images of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period.
  • They pertain to:
  • Heaven and hell.
  • Fire and water.
  • Bonds and divisions.
• Opposites

  • The language of the play is dominated by life-threatening images of evil, poison, diseases and violence, echoing Biblical imagery.
  • The images in Othello often tend to work in pairs or opposites, e.g. dark and light, which can then be seen to reverse themselves or become indistinguishable from each other.
• Other imagery

  • Some other key imagery in the play includes:
  • Animals.
  • Words.
  • Turning.
  • Poison.
  • Jewels.
  • Pregnancy.
  • Sea.
• Other imagery cont.

  • Some other key imagery in the play includes:
  • Traps.
  • Gardening.
  • Hell.
  • Blood.
  • Eyes.
  • Black and White.
• Iago’s Language

  Iago speaks to the audience throughout the play, unlike Othello, and this draws us into his web.
• Soliloquy

  • The dramatic device of the soliloquy gives us the speaker’s perspective and makes us in part, his accomplices, as we are taken into his confidence and listen to his plots being hatched against the other characters.
  • Iago speaks to the audience throughout the play, unlike Othello, and this draws us into his web.
• Truth

  • The theatrical convention is that in soliloquy, the characters tell the truth, but Iago may be an exception in that he may not know himself what the truth is about his own feelings.
• Placing

  • Iago’s soliloquies are an essential part of the plot of the tragedy in that they tend to fall at the beginning or end of scenes, where they either preview what is about to happen, or summarise and look back on what has just happened, and the response of the others.
• Importance

  • The strategic placing of the speeches gives the impression that Iago is playing the role of a chorus in a play of his own devising, and that he is the source of all the action.
  • His soliloquies are worth considering a good deal for the wealth of material they provide for a discussion of the characters, themes and imagery of the play.