imagery

• Poisoning: associated with Iago and his manipulation. His jealousy of Othello “doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw at my inwards”, so he will “pour this pestilence into his ear” by making Othello jealous. He is gleeful that his lies will “burn like the mines of sulphur”. Desdemona’s supposed affair is said to have “contaminated” their bed, and Iago encourages Othello to “do it not with poison” but “strangle her in her bed”. When Lodovico discovers the “tragic loading” of bodies, he calls it “poisons sight”.
• Hell/ the devil: Shakespeare subverts the negativity around black men by making Iago a devilish vice, using the semantics of hell: “when devils will their blackest sins put on/ They do suggest at first with heavenly shows/ As I do now”.
• Othello is also convinced of Desdemona’s evil and makes a “sacred vow” to wreak vengeance on her “by yond marble heaven”, and tries to get her to admit it by saying “being like one of heaven, the devils themselves/ Should fear to seize thee”. He also blames Emilia, who “keeps the gates of hell” for Desdemona. Emilia says Othello “art a devil” or is “the blacker devil” when she discovers Desdemona’s death, but it is in fact the “hellish devil” of Iago who is the villain.
• Animals: Othello is plagued by racist zoomorphism, in Iago’s sexual imagery (”an old black ram is tupping your white ewe”, “a Barbary horse”, “making the beast with two backs”). It also marks idiocy, as Othello will “tenderly be led by thy nose, as asses are” and made “egregiously an ass”. He is convinced of Desdemona’s affair with primal imagery; Iago says she and Cassio were “prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, as salt as wolves in pride”. Iago is also villanised by the last animal images- an “inhuman dog” and “Spartan dog”.
• Maritime: Used to describe Othello’s nobility and Desdemona’s love for him, his “fair warrior”. As he vows to revenge her, his imagery vows violence: “like the Pontic sea, whose icy and compulsive course ne’er feels retiring ebb… my bloody thoughts with violent pace shall ne’er look back”. As he prepares to kill himself, he reverts to this imagery: “my journey’s end, here is my butt, and very sea mark of my utmost sail"
• Black/White: Othello is “far more fair than black” compared to Iago, yet he negatively racialises himself when ashamed- “Her name that was as fresh as Dian’s visage , is now begrimed and black as mine face”. In the play, he moves away from Desdemona’s light (exclaiming “put out the light, and then put out the light” when preparing to kill her) to Iago’s darkness.
• Jealousy: Suggests it is all consuming- “the green eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on”, “eaten up with passion”