A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's "Othello" (1995 lit-to-film)

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's "Othello" (1995 lit-to-film), excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781410394019

Book preview

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Othello

William Shakespeare

1995

Introduction

Othello was among the most popular of Shakespeare's plays in his lifetime and remains a perennial favorite, perhaps second only to Hamlet. The 1995 adaptation by Oliver Parker is the first professional film to cast a black actor (Laurence Fishburne) in the title role. Othello deals with powerful themes of race and sex that are as compelling today as they were in Shakespeare's era. The beauty of the play's language and the perfection of its character studies have rarely been matched.

Othello's title character is a native of North Africa who has led an unusually eventful life, both as a slave and a free man, traveling and fighting around the fringes of the Ottoman Empire. By the time of the play, he has gone through a process that today might be described as defection and become a general in Venice, a leading Christian state. There he plays the role of the other, an alien outsider, who on one hand is feared and hated because he is black and, on the other, is valued for his military expertise and deep knowledge of the enemy. When he is appointed to command in Cyprus in the face of an expected Turkish attack, he marries a Venetian noblewoman, Desdemona. Othello's subordinate Iago, who hates the Moor, poisons his mind with jealousy and convinces Othello that his wife has betrayed him. Deceived, Othello murders his wife and then kills himself.

Plot Summary

Shakespeare Begins The Play Of Othello with a scene of Iago reporting to his friend Roderigo how Othello wronged him by refusing to make him his lieutenant, or second in command. Iago plans to revenge himself for this insult by reporting to Senator Brabantio that Othello has carried off his daughter, Desdemona, and married her. The film delays and abbreviates this scene and instead begins with a scene of Othello riding in a gondola. He is accompanied by a woman who, half asleep, is leaning her head on his arm. Contrary to expectation, this is not Desdemona but is probably a prostitute with whom Othello has been celebrating Carnival, which the film takes as its setting. The camera next shows Desdemona coming to Othello in her own gondola and her marriage ceremony with Othello, events Shakespeare had Iago describe.

These scenes are intercut with the meeting in the palace of the Duke (i.e., Doge) of Venice and the senate debate of their reaction to the Turkish attack on Cyprus. They decide to send a relief force under the command of Othello. Iago will serve as Othello's ensign, or third in command, below his rival, Cassio. Iago might have declined, considering the position a snub as