Practice Commentary

On Othello passage
Moiz Zahid
Mr. Marshall ENG3UW

The passage is spoken in the end of Act 1, scene 3 in a soliloquy by Iago. This passage occurs after all the other characters are headed off to Cyprus. In the passage Iago is speaking of his evil scheme he is going to commit to get revenge on Othello for not giving him the lieutenant position and on Cassio for stealing this position from him. Iago speaks of using Roderigo and his money as his financial base to perform his revenge. Iago plans to deceive Othello that the good looking Cassio is seducing his wife Desdemona. Othello s open mind and unstable mind will in return cause Othello to make become jealous and fire Cassio. This way Iago will have revenge on both Othello and Cassio. This basically is speaking of the treacherous series of act to occur later in the play. The overall purpose of this passage is to develop the plot. This passage is the plotting the inciting incident by foreshadowing the acts that are to occur later in the play. The entire play of Othello basically begins with Iago himself. Iago already has more lines than Othello in the entire play. It is Iago s vengeance and jealous that begins the plot of the novel and progress it throughout the play. This passage is one of the many passages by Iago that forward the plot, however this particular long passage begin the story by indicating what is really going to occur later in the play. At this point in the novel nothing intense or tragic as occurred. After this passage, the chaos of Cassio and Roderigo quarrelling, deception of Othello s mind and murder of characters occur. Therefore this passage plays a very significant role in the play as a whole. The author writes this passage in such a literary way that it explains the entire play that is to occur. The author uses the literary devices of diction, imagery, tone and metaphors to help create and maintain the purpose of the passage. The first of many literary devices used in the passage is diction. The author uses the dark and deceiving diction to foreshadow the terrible events that are to occur from Iago s evil scheme. The passage uses negative and insulting words such as fool (383), profane (384) and profit (386) to foreshadow the happenings to Roderigo. These words explain how throughout the play Roderigo will be used as a tool for others since he is a fool. Plus the use of profane explains how disrespectfully he will be treated and how Iago treats him with irreverence. Then the uses of dark and terrible words like suspicion (389), plume (393), knavery (394) and false (398) foreshadow how treacherous and devious this plan is to be. Plus the free and open (399) minded Othello will make Iago s plan easier and make the plot more exaggerated as he is easily deceived even though he is an honourable rank in the military. These wordsalso remind me of how later in the play, Othello is deceived enough that he kills his wife Desdemona without any proof. It is because of Othello s open and free mind that he is manipulated without any hard proof to kill his wife.Overall the diction in this passage provides the fore coming plot in the play and how thanks to easily manipulative and foolish men, it will be exaggerated to extreme lengths. Consequently, the author uses the sly, disrespectful and deceiving diction to provide a hint of the terrible events that are to unfold. Similarly, the author uses imagery to help create and describe a vivid image of how horrible the events will be in the play. The nasty and unfaithful imagery in this passage by Iago tell of what the play holds for the other characters. Basically twixt my sheets/He has done my office state the motivation of the entire plot, which is to get even, wife for wife, meaning revenge. This imagery is of having sex with the other s wife, which is set as a motivation for Iago s vengeance.That vengeance is what solely progresses the plot of this play as the motivation is what begins this play s story. This sentence of

imagery solely sets the motivation of getting even, which is what the entire play is about. Not only has the author used this one sentence imagery to set the base of why this is the inciting incident, but also has added many other compelling imagery pieces to help add to clarify and foreshadow the events to occur. Imagery like abuse (395), nature (399), asses (402), Hell (403), night (403) and monstrous (404) all indicate of the devilish and wild nature of the events to unfold. Abuse meaning deceiving which will happen a lot later in the plot. Nature , hell and night carry the negative connotation of the uncontrolled, wild, devilish and freighting dark consequences of the actions and the actions themselves that is to occur later in the novel which creates a horrifying image in the audience s mind. Then the word asses meaning fools fits perfectly into the word monstrous , meaning huge as it creates the imagery of how easily this plan will work on everyone because of how foolish the characters are on a grand scale. These words I believe are in a way shown throughout the play which makes this passage effective, as hell does break lose near the end of the play where Emilia and Roderigo are killed and Cassio is left crippled. The imagery from this passage does occur throughout the novel and especially near the end of the play that makes it effective. The author uses this wild and devilish imagery effectively to foreshadow the coming plot. Furthermore, the author uses a dark and disrespectful tone to help emphasize the diction and imagery to maintain the purpose of foreshadowing and creating the inciting incident. Throughout the passage disrespectful and discriminant tone is used. This type of tone also adds to the purpose that imagery and diction help to maintain. The tone helps indicate the disrespectfulness of Iago towards others which makes him more of villainous character. The words like profane (384), snipe (385), hate (386), moor (386) and night (403) found in the passage are all disrespectful or dark in their own way. Profane meaning to abuse, which foreshadows Iago using Roderigo s money for his own use. Snipe meaning worthless foreshadows how everyone is treated like their worthless. This meaning is shown later in the play as Iago does disrespect Roderigo and Cassio together to make them quarrel. The word hate is a strong word that also adds with the imagery and diction to help foreshadow the strong emotion and hatred between characters. The word moor however, is the most disrespectful as it means black people which were frowned upon in the time of the 16th century. Iago calls Othello the moor as Othello is black. The word moor also shows discrimination and racism towards black people, and it also helps to enlighten on the idea of how racist and prosperous the upcoming events in the play. The sinister tone in this passage is effective to add to the purpose of this passage. The tone, like imagery and diction help foreshadow upcoming events and develop the plot by describing the terrible events to unfold. In addition to imagery, diction and tone, the author also uses metaphors to help illustrate the insidious foreshadowed plot. Shakespeare demonstrates this use of this literary device in the very first line of the soliloquy, where Iago speaks make my fool my purse (383). This use of metaphor foreshadows the sinister that is yet to unfold upon the other characters as many of the other characters in the play will be tricked for others sport and profit (386). Later on in the passage, Shakespeare goes to show how utterly trusting the characters are. In the passage it is said by Iago he is too familiar with his wife (387), which holds a connotation of how trusting every character is, and how that flaw helps make the plot more overly exaggerated. For example, Othello s overly trust on Iago is a major flaw that

causes him to react with exaggeratingly emotion to every decisive word he hears of his wife cheating. Thus, the metaphors in this passage all contain key connotations to help hint at why this plot is overly exaggerated and foreshadow the extreme events that are to occur later in the plot In conclusion, the soliloquy by Iago at the end of act 1, scene 3 is a meaningful passage. The author s purpose for this passage was to create the inciting incident and foreshadowing the upcoming events in the play. The author used effective diction, imagery, tone and metaphors to help describe, clear and hint at the horrifying upcoming events that are to occur in the novel.