Category: Context AO3

Separate Spheres  

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Gender is a significant theme in Oscar Wilde’s ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ and knowing the context and general social attitudes towards this still contentious issue can help shed a brighter light on the meaning behind proclamations like women live ‘on their emotions’ The idea of separate spheres can help with this understanding.  

Separate Spheres (What Does it Mean?) 

Separate Spheres is a 19th century doctrine on appropriate activities for the sexes rooted in the binary conceptions of gender and its incorrect conflation with biological sex. Men were meant to enter the workforce and exchange ideas, exercising their physical strength and expanding their intellectual capacity. Women were meant to stay at home, providing a soft and secure base for her husband and the children she was expected to birth.  

This concept relied on the idea of ‘natural’ characteristics between men and women. While women were dismissed as physically weaker, they were pedestalized as morally superior to men. This made them better suited for domestic chores. Their designated role as the purer sex was to counterbalance the moral taint of the public sphere that their hardworking husbands would have been stained with. They also had to carry on the next generation of life.  This expectation was used as an argument to continue blocking women from voter’s rights. 

Public Sphere: Seen as Men’s domain, giving them the freedom to move outside the home and participate easily in public life.  

Private Sphere: Where Women (allegedly and definitely shouldn’t have had to) belong, taking care of household matters.  

You Can’t make this Shhh up! But… Who did? 

Variations of this idea have sadly existed for thousands of years in the Western world, however the first known mention is in Aristotle’s ‘Politics’. The idea became more developed during the Industrial Revolution when the roles of men and women- through the seemingly metaphysically powerful forces of socialization and shifting social norms- began to solidify. The Age of Enlightenment also has a role to play because through it emerged a theory called ‘Biological Determinism’. This theory held that people acted exclusively in accordance with their genes, not even leaving the most claustrophobic space for variables like free will, autonomy or individual differences. This theory was supported by the science of the day, being a part of the twisted legacy of science’s usage in justifying a symphony of societal ills (Don’t believe me? Look into the link between physiognomy and scientific racism). But how did this influence the routines of men and women, creating the cultural landscape for ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’? 

The 19th Century 

With the pages and pages of social scripts coercively handed to men and women, by the 19th century they were primed to fulfil their respective ‘purposes’.  With men away from the house more and more, women focused on overseeing the domestic duties diligently performed by servants. From the 1830s women started to adopt the crinoline, a gigantic bell-shaped skirt that scored major points on decadence but left everything to be desired in the comfortability department, rendering it almost impossible to move in, yet alone clean a grate, sweep the stairs or do any physical labor equivalent to men. ‘She is beautiful. What more can you want?’ -Chapter 7 of ‘Dorian Gray’, courtesy of Lord Henry’s flagrant misogyny. This even impacted the way women and girls were educated. 

Education of Women 

This primarily focused on preparing (indoctrinating, take your pick) women with the qualities that would help them become an ‘Angel in the House’. Middle-class girls were coached in what were labelled ‘accomplishments. These helped them feel more Confident, Independent, Empowered and… I’m obviously lying! This is the 19th Century we’re talking about here.  

In Chapter 8 of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Caroline Bingle lists the ‘accomplishments’ women/girls must have. This section serves as a harrowing list of the prerequisites to worthiness that were in place for women and girls at the time. They were required to have a ‘thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and modern languages. While on the surface women had more access than their private sphere ranking would suggest, this access was reserved to mainly white women at a certain echelon of society. Even with those women, their life had to stamped with compromises and concessions. It was very important for well-educated women to contort their erudition (intellect and great knowledge) into a palatable package because of the idea that women could have an intellectual capacity equal to men was seen as an affront to the ‘natural’ order of things.   

‘We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: “You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.”’- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (We should all be feminists and Beyoncé’s Flawless). 

This misguided attitude even slipped into vernacular and infected medical viewpoints. ‘Blue stockings’ was the name for women who dared to pursue literary interests, and some doctors reported that too much study had damaging effects on the ovaries, distorting vivacious women into dried up prunes.  

The Lasting Legacy of Separate Spheres ideology 

Because of the idea the expectation of women to stay in the home, they were no public bathrooms for women until the 19th century.  The idea of Separate Spheres waned in popularity during the early 20th century when new scientific ideas thankfully caused many to question the theory of biological determinism. The success of first-wave feminism also helped lead its slow and ongoing walk to irrelevance. So, women are more than just the ‘decorative sex’. Forget you, Lord Henry!  

Unfortunately, the remains of Separate Spheres exist in society today as housework is still gendered. According to a recent study, men reported doing 19% of the housework whereas women reported doing 49%.  

Read and Watch these for more

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century

The Doctrine of Separate Spheres: Why a Woman’s Place Was In the Home

Toni Morrison – Key Ideas!

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Books and articles are commonly used sources of information, stories and literary ideas. There’s no doubt that they are great and incredibly useful, however it’s good to remember that there are other sources for you to use: video lectures and podcasts for just a couple of examples!

That being said, today I’m going to be sharing with you some of these featuring Toni Morrison. She was a Nobel Prize Winning author, essayist, book editor, and college professor and discusses and presents some of my favourite literary ideas – many of them surrounding Black history and the representation of Black people, especially women, in literature. She also may be the author of one of your set texts! Here are some lectures containing her theories:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00d3wc9

I hope you found this interesting!

– Elisha

Machiavelli

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The man behind the myth – demoniac, manipulating, the Antichrist? These are all associated with Niccolò Machiavelli, Shakespeare’s basis for Iago.

Whilst we might use ‘Machiavellian’ to describe Othello’s chief villain, the description seems to be more in reference to the legend behind his name rather than the man himself.

Born in Florence in 1469, Machiavelli surrounded himself with politics at a young age. He did not belong to the Florentine elite, and was therefore practically unelectable. Machiavelli was acutely aware of the prejudices surrounding his lower station so, instead of pursuing power, he became a critic of it.

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

Niccolò Machiavelli, ‘The Prince’

Machivelli’s critical lens exposed the most influential family in Florence – a family who enforced their regime by commanding the most sacred post in Europe. Related to two particularly corrupt Popes, the House of Medici would ultimately be outcast from Florence. Despite this, Machiavelli would still be remembered as encouraging corruption, rather than dismantling it.

Ironically, the hierarchical fear of Machiavelli’s cutting satire against corruption would twist his legacy into an adjective synonymous with ‘corrupt’.

Here’s a supplementary essay…

Explore how Shakespeare presents the character of Othello

Essay written 17th June 2021 for End of Year Examinations (Year 12). The essay received 30/35 (18/21, 12/14)

Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses the character of Othello to show his audience the barbaric pressure on outsiders living in a society that does not accept or understand them. Exploring the stereotypes of Moors in Elizabethan and Jacobean society, Shakespeare ultimately presents Othello as a Moor whose outsider-status leaves him vulnerable to manipulation and unable to cope under the lens of Shakespeare’s Venice.

Firstly, Othello is presented as an outsider. Coming from North Africa, Othello is left susceptible to racial prejudices throughout the play, most poignantly in Act 1 Scene 1, where Iago, the Machiavellian Villain, crafts a bestial image when speaking to Desdemona’s father. He informs Brabantio that ‘now, now, very now, an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe’. This is one of the first comments that introduces the audience to the character of Othello, without him even being there. Could Shakespeare be educating his audience that, because of his race, Othello us unable to define his own identity? Loomba writes that Venice’s openness would have been seen as ‘dangerous by a society [London] itself fairly suspicious of outsiders’ The metaphor ‘black ram’ enforces Othello’s outsider status, as the term black sheep is often used to describe those who do not belong and are not welcome in society. Loomba argues that Othello’s origins would have made him appear ‘dangerous’ to contemporary Jacobean society, and I would agree with him, if Venice is to be viewed as a foil for London, as Iago plays on the narrative of this danger by the juxtaposing between ‘black’ and ‘white’. Not only is Othello an outsider, but also seen as being completely other to Venice. The line break between ‘black ram’ and ‘is tupping’ further supports the argument of Othello’s separation from society, or Iago’s desire to separate him further from society. This is where I would disagree with Loomba and emphasise that this society was not only ‘fairly suspicious’ but, rather, empathically opposed to the inclusion of outsiders into contemporary London, especially after Elizabeth I’s attempted expulsion of black people from England during her reign (‘those kinde of people should be sente forthe of the land’). The violent verb ‘tupping’ is also embellished with the stereotype of the Moor being aggressive and lusty. Because this description contrasts with the Othello that we meet later on in Act 1 (an Othello who speaks of Venetian acceptance, and a noble man who ‘invited me [him]’), Othello meets the tragic trope, seen in many of Shakespeare’s tragedies, of being misunderstood by the society which would ultimately turn on him. Shakespeare’s choice to not let Othello define himself to the audience is not just symptomatic of the play’s beginning, but even into the later stages of the dramatic arc when Iago interrupts his soliloquy. Othello is completely defined by Iago’s language and Iago’s perversion of the truth. Shakespeare could be using this haunting study on the horrific consequences of being a vulnerable outsider in Venice, and London by extension, to education his audience on the destructive power of their own prejudices. Shakespeare challenges his audience to think not just what they hear, but to escape the barriers of their own racism. It is Othello’s inability to cope with the stereotype that surrounds him that leads to the destruction of his marriage with Desdemona.

Secondly, Shakespeare presents Othello as being torn between the dual concepts of being a warrior and a lover. When Desdemona greets him in Cyprus, Othello names her ‘my fair warrior’. Although Shakespeare covers this with the façade of a harmless term of endearment, one could argue that the possessive pronoun ‘my’ implies that Othello feels that he had dominion and ownership over his new wife. Here, Othello has already begun to fall into the stereotype of the Moor, one of which is known to have been the oppression of women. However, the possessive pronoun could also suggest the love shared between Othello and Desdemona, juxtaposing completely with the lascivious and purely sexual relationship that Iago describes in scene one. The noun ‘warrior’, however, seems to bring a purely loving marriage into question. The noun evokes feelings of strife and death, perhaps dwelling on the elopement that brought the two together, unbeknownst to Desdemona’s father. Shakespeare could be suggesting that Othello cannot distinguish between being a lover and a warrior, and not only does Shakespeare let him be defined by other characters, might he be implying that Othello is almost unable to define himself, knowing his warrior-status as thus far being the only thing to build his Venetian reputation? Here, Shakespeare presents Othello as having a rootless identity and is perhaps already predisposed for tragedy because of his lack of experience in a society so unforgiving to outsiders. This relationship with Desdemona is destined to fail as he cannot find balance between love and war, and therefore only deals in absolutes when it comes to his romance. It is, of course, a love destroyed both by lack of identity and Othello’s poisonous jealously.

Lastly, Othello is presented as being a character who is easily manipulated into jealousy. Shakespeare uses ‘the handkerchief’ as a symbol of love between Othello and Desdemona. It is this ‘handkerchief’ that Iago used to manipulate Othello into believing that Desdemona has committed adultery. Because of his lack of a solidified identity and misunderstanding of Venetian courtship, Iago is able to completely derail Othello in Act 3 Scene 3. Iago activated poisonous intend within Othello, who soon begins to repeat Iago’s idiomatic language such as ‘honesty’. Loomba writes that Othello is ‘predisposed to believe that women are false’, and whilst he does come to believe Iago at a very rapid speed, it does not seem that he is predisposed to. It might in fact be Iago’s perversion of the ‘handkerchief’, shifting its pure symbolism into being emblematic of lies and deceit that curves Othello into believing nothing else but what he sees before his eyes, an ocular proof that Iago provides him with the handkerchief. To the character of Othello, everything looses meaning, a moment that acts as the peripeteia in his tragic arc. It might be argued that Othello’s hamartia is jealousy, but it seems to be more arguable that Othello’s legacy is tarnished most by his mistrust in unreliable villains. Iago’s manipulation of the purity of language is further shown by his use of ‘honesty’, said forty-nine times throughout the play. The semantic field of trust is soon embedded into Othello’s own language, symbolising the crushing defeat of manipulation over purity. Whilst Rymer could argue that the handkerchief plot is ‘farcical’, it could also be said that it becomes a reminder of how easily outsiders’ lives can be destroyed into oblivion.

To conclude, Shakespeare uses Othello to educate his audience on being an outsider. Ultimately, Othello is presented as a Moor whose unrooted individualism leaves him vulnerable and unarmed for Venetian life.

Thanks for reading!

Alexander Stephenson

Higher Level Romantic Context – Lecture Notes

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Romantics Lecture Notes

Massolit – Romanticism – Dr Ross Wilson

Genre:

  • Named after the genre of literature ‘the romance’ – fantastical tale involving a quest, elements of folk-law and magic etc. Romanticism thought as a revival of ‘The Romance’.
  • Romanticism – a rejection of conformity, thought that genre doesn’t matter (Bryan W. Proctor), despite being named after a genre.
  • Many achievements of the Romantics are of recovering old genres. e.g., reviving the Sonnet.
  • Emergence of the autobiography, historical novel, the ballad etc.
  • So complex, as both named after a genre, and revival and invention of genre and rejection and suppression of conformality in favour of individuality.

Language:

  • John Locke – philosopher – thought language was arbitrary, no natural connection between words and what they mean. Language only arises out of habit and convention.
  • Poetic diction – 18th century, thought poetry should be written with a sense of decorum, elevated, highly selective etc.
  • Both ideas above came under pressure in Romantic period.
  • Wordsworth – poets have “a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, that are supposed to be common among mankind” – thinks poets language and language of ordinary people are the same, only difference between normal language and poetry is metre. Wordsworth trying to rethink the insistence of poetic diction and reject the idea that words are arbitrary – Wordsworth adopts the language of normal people as it arises “out of repeated experience and regular feelings”. ‘arises’ suggests there is a connection between feelings and objects and the words used to represent them.
  •  Romantic ideas – that language needs to be rethought and reinvigorated – especially Shelley. He’s more happy with the arbitrariness of words, but thinks habits should be rethought. Thinks language of poets notices relationships between words, therefore rejuvenated and that language needs constant rejuvenating.

Emotion:

  • Emotions to the detriment of thoughts? Emotions in qualified thoughts and some rationality.
  • ‘for all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ – Wordsworth. Statement immediately followed by a qualification: ‘but modified and directed by our thoughts’ – connection between thought and feeling. Emotion via contemplation produces poetry.
  • Wdswth: thoughts are representative of past feelings. Emotion via contemplation = poetry. Emotion mediated by thought and returned to. E.g. Tintern Abbey.
  • Keats: poetry is like a remembrance. Almost reminding the reader of feelings/ thoughts etc. Keats’ letters. ‘it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts’, appearing ‘almost as a remembrance’. Keats looks at effect of reader a lot. ‘thoughts’ not feelings.

Poetry:

  • Being a ‘true poet’ rather than a man of wit and sense – Warton brothers.
  • Poets don’t necessarily adhere to moral standards but are the unacknowledged legislators of the world – Shelley.
  • William Hazlitt – All are poets, ‘the poet does no more than describe what the others think and act’. Not necessarily morally sound. Decoupling of poetic imagination from morality, also case for those poets that want to claim a political or social position for poetry.

The Sublime

  • Astonishment is the main effect of the sublime. All-encompassing can only think of sublime when experiencing it. Magnitude. – Burke
  • Beautiful is a more serene experience.
  • Kant: Dynamic sublime (power of nature) vs Mathematical sublime (huge sized objects so difficult to take in).
  • Emotion and nature not easily understood, awe-inspiring and horrific.
  • Contemplation to thoughts of grandeur of nature to thoughts of power of nature.
  • Sublime and nature – incomprehensible.

Nature

  • Keats- ‘if poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all’. Poetry itself is a natural product – not manmade – a paradox.
  • Nature not only grandeur – sometimes fleeting and vulnerable, wdswth explores this in poems about flowers. Blake emphasises minute particulars in nature.
  • Nature doesn’t always show itself in daylight.
  • Blake – doesn’t appreciate wdswths love of nature. Rejection and resisting of wdsworthian nature.

The Supernatural

  • Gothic arose with the Romantic movement.
  • Is life bestowed by God or scientific – ‘Frankenstein’ by Shelley.
  • Lyrical Ballads – wdswth to talk about nature, Coleridge to talk about supernatural.
  • Blake – child trying to communicate with adult, songs of innocence/experience. Whether that goes towards to death – like in ‘The Erl-King’ by Goethe
  • Byron – comedy to do with ghosts. Gothic.
  • Art itself is a ghostly thing – not alive but seems like it may come alive – Byron.

Revolution

  • American Revolution 1775-83
  • French Revolution 1789-99
  • Reign of Terror
  • Napoleonic Period
  • England at war with revolutionary then Napoleonic France.
  • Blake – responds to revolution in some poems – has constant revolutionary spirit. Rethinking of European societies. Wdswth, Coleridge enthusiasts to French Revolution. Wdswth did have revolutionary politics but then he betrayed those principles.
  •  Born around French revolution in violent reaction in England to it: Byron, Shelley, Keats.
  • Haitian Revolution – 1791 – celebrated by wdswth.
  • In England: unrest. Manchester – early industrial town and growing population yet no parliamentary representation – charged event – Peterloo Massacre 1819. Shelley wrote ‘The Mask of Anarchy’ in response.
  • Not a lot of political freedom in terms of voting – women couldn’t vote, ballots weren’t anonymous etc.

The Romantic Canon

  • The ‘big six’ are all men – there were Romantic female poets.
  • Slavery starting to come under pressure. Black poets overlooked also.
  • When does Romanticism end? Is it with the death of Wordsworth of does it still appear in current poetry.

A Biography of Blake

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Hello everyone,

Welcome to another post. Today I thought I’d share some contextual notes on William Blake, one of the Romantic poets that we study:

William Blake was a Romantic poet and artist, notable for his collections of poetry: ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’. He is described as a ‘mystic enraptured with incommunicable visions’ and ‘an interruption in cultural history, a separable phenomenon’. He used his poetry to speak for the vulnerable: women, children and those affected by poverty through heavy symbolism and can be considered ‘nothing short of a leading author and a key source of passion’ in the Romantic movement.

He was born in 1757 in London, where he lived for all but three years of his life. He was the third of seven children, of which two died in infancy and was given a devout upbringing by his parents, dissenters like himself. Although born into a poor family, his wealth fluctuated throughout his life, ranging from being somewhat affluent to living in extreme poverty. From the age of ten he claimed to have visions of angels, spirits, devils and demons, starting with seeing a tree full of angels, conforming to the idea of the time presented by fellow Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, that poets hold ‘a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul’.

Around him huge historical events were taking place, most notably many revolutions: the French Revolution of 1789, the American Revolution of 1776 and, closer to home, the Industrial Revolution. He welcomed both the French and American revolutions, seeing them as calls for change and ‘decisive stroke[s] for the freedom and emancipation of the human spirit’. He also hoped that they would inspire increased democratisation in England and, as shown in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, felt that repression, by a divine or human oppressor, would always breed revolution, and that that was completely justified. However, he felt very differently about the Industrial Revolution. Seeing as Blake lived in London, he wouldn’t have seen the full affect of it on the countryside, but he would definitely have known of the effect it was having on the economy and the implications of the factory system, especially as he made sure to keep track of world events. Contrary to his thoughts on the revolutions overseas, he saw the Industrial Revolution as ‘an attempt to restrict human capacity and the freedom of imagination’.

Every event around him and in his personal life, like many great artists, formed the basis of his beliefs that were then translated into his work and creations. The loss of individualism and constriction of imagination brought by the Industrial Revolution led Blake to take on the role of reinstating people’s imagination, which he did so through symbolic literature and carefully plotted paint. He soon found it integral to spread his messages through cryptic metaphors so as not to repeat his trial for high treason in 1804!

Interestingly, though Blake may now be known as one of the greatest Romantic poets, in his lifetime he was unknown and only picked up fame towards the very end of his life. He self-published his work, unlike other Romantic poets, in books in which each poem had a page or a part of one, and were all illuminated (all painted out with images surrounding them). His work can be split into three parts: lyrics (e.g. ‘Songs of Innocence/Experience’, ‘Poetic Sketches’ etc.), shorter prophecies (‘Blake’s mythology’ was established here (his private repertoire of characters) and included poems such as ‘Heaven and Hell’) and longer prophecies (in which he attempted to create a complete account of human history in poems such as ‘Milton’).

Blake’s style is very individual, not fitting completely into any category. It is ‘anti-classical, anti-official, but at the same time too deeply rooted both, paradoxically, in his own imagination and his everyday environment to warrant any assimilation into the category of Romantic’. He was a follower of the renowned artist Michelangelo, who was known to have a ‘hero-quality’ to his artwork, had read various theological works, some of Wordsworth’s writing (of which he didn’t like very much!) and, because he was self-educated and so relied on any texts available to him, read the Bible frequently and therefore had expert knowledge on it.

As previously mentioned, he had strong views on many things, such as:

Religion and the Church: Blake himself was a Dissenting Christian (a Protestant Christian who is separated from the Church of England) and his perception of God varied from biblical and church teachings of Him. He rejected the idea of a vengeful and punitive God as he felt that that was a concept people used to justify their revenge and desire for power, instead he focused on the presence of Christ’s Holy Spirit. He saw organised Christianity as a ‘distortion of true spiritual life’, thought that it made people conform to rules out of shame or fear of punishment instead of spirituality and felt that it was an agent of social control, instead of a ‘source of life and liberation’.

Blake also had strong thoughts on the ‘Fall’ of Adam and Eve. He proposed that the fall of Adam and Eve wasn’t a fall into sin, but a ‘fall into a distorted way of seeing God, the world and the self’. He also said that the fall brought a separation between the sexes and that this effected human sexuality, making it about jealousy rather than true joy, and therefore brought about social ills such as prostitution, leading to poverty and disease. 

Marriage, Sex and Love: Believing that human sexuality was distorted, he can be considered a forerunner in the ‘free love’ movement. This stated that marriage is slavery and advocated for the removal of all laws restricting sexual activity, such as laws against homosexuality, prostitution, and adultery. Perhaps by removing these laws Blake hoped that acts such as prostitution would actually become less frequent.

In his personal life, Blake married his wife Catherine Boucher in 1782 and never ended up having children. It is thought that she was unable to carry them. This is probably what lead Blake to be critical of marriage laws and to disagree with the Christian idea that chastity was a virtue. It is said that at a time of difficulty in his marriage he asked whether a second wife should be brought into the house, however it is unknown if his ideologies of ‘free love’ were put into practice.

Politics: Although not known to be a member of any particular political movement, Blake stated his arguably radical political views clearly. He advocated for free will and was sympathetic towards the French and American revolution’s spirit of freedom. He believed in championing change and revolution, opposed slavery and tyranny and distrusted authority. Unlike some other Romantic poets, he never retracted his allegiance to the revolutionary spirit.

Children and Women: Blake’s thoughts on gender politics were complex to some degree; on one hand he wrote a lot about sexual liberation, as mentioned before, but on the other hand he also discussed the evil represented by the female will as though it is responsible for humanity’s downfall. It is debatable as to whether he was for restricting women or whether he felt there should be some restriction on desire for all (abolishing prostitution etc.). Blake used children in his poetry frequently, treated them as though they have ‘divinity within their souls’ and explored the duality of childhood.

Nature: A huge feature of the Romantic movement was the appreciation of nature, and Blake conformed to that to some extent. Although he wasn’t a ‘worshipper’ of nature (he criticised many of them), the theme of it features in many of his poems. For him, it is said that nature represented ‘the fact of human fall’ and was part of the earthly world. It could be used for man to reach an awareness of their place in the Universe.

It is clear that Blake ended up playing an instrumental part in the Romantic movement. He found a way to explore ‘the two contrary states of the human soul’ and provided a voice to those that were silenced. He was ‘the embodiment of the Romantic purpose, which was to bring man and nature closer together’.

If you would like to, you can download the biography here:

blake-biography-1Download

I hope that this has helped some of you!

Have a lovely day.

-Elisha

Relationship between Othello and Iago

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Explore Shakespeare’s presentation of the relationship between Othello and Iago

PLAN – put together by Mrs Borrett’s Year 12 English Literature Class.

“There are Iagos everywhere!”

Prof. John McRae

Key Ideas: Control, Trust, Plotting, Audience’s omniscience (soliloquies), Audience’s helplessness, Abuse of trust, Machiavellian characters everywhere (John McRae), Moorish stereotypes, Comedy becomes tragic, Power, Motive, Truth.

ARGUMENT 1

Trust – The relationship between Othello and Iago is explored through the misuse and abuse of trust.

Quotation: ‘…honest Iago…’ (1.3) – response: Othello’s understanding of Iago is shown in complete contrast to the audience’s understanding of Iago (soliloquy ‘I hate the Moor’ (1.3)). Although the audience is omniscient, they soon become aware of their helplessness to the unfolding of Iago’s plot. Their relationship is one of uncertainty, encapsulated by the audience’s fleeting understanding of the trust shared between them. We, just like all but one of the characters in the play, are left uncertain by Iago’s motive, though we may well understand the gravity of his plotting’s trajectory.

“Motive-hunting of motiveless malignity.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Response: though at certain points in the play Iago does reveal motives, they soon become so convoluted that we grow wary of the truths within them. Our disillusionment with Iago’s soliloquies grows so great by the end of the play that his silence after the death of Desdemona becomes agonising. The only thing we understand is his action, so I would agree that Iago is motiveless, even to the point of his uncertainty about his own motive.

Whether his soliloquies are ‘motive-hunting’, however, as Coleridge writes, is questionable. Iago’s ‘And what’s he then that says I play the villain,’ does not seem to be on-the-spot ‘motive-hunting’, but rather a premeditated lure to draw in the audience to the more comical ideas in the play, to repress the ideas of tragedy, and make them complicit in his plot. This malignant, Machiavellian inconsistency shatters the trust between the audience and Iago as it reinforces Othello’s reliance on his betrayer.

ARGUMENT 2

Power – The relationship between Othello and Iago is explored through the pendulum of power that Shakespeare places between them.

Quotations: ‘I am your own forever’ (3.3). Response: when looking at power, we can explore the shift from Venice to Cyprus as a symbolic entrance into Iago’s world, a world in which the Venetian state holds no authority, and Iago plays the puppet master. Shakespeare offers us the metaphor of tuning instruments throughout the play to explore this dynamic, especially as Iago takes complete hold of the narrative in the Scene of Asides (4.1), capturing Othello’s need for ocular truth by his webbing of fatal misunderstandings, another comedic theme that Shakespeare has taken to the extremes in this play.

Iago is also the lens through which the audience sees the play. His soliloquies open up this world of impending doom to Shakespeare’s public. By the Scene of Asides (4.1), we must also ask ourselves how much of what Iago is presenting to us is in fact truth. To link with the argument on Truth, we will use McEvoy as a critic.

“Audience becomes complicit in Iago’s intention.”

Sean McEvoy

Response: the Othello that the audience understands is a constructed character. Iago is the primary source of information about our tragic hero: his introduction, his trust, his downfall, his language, his passion and his jealously.

I would argue that before 3.3, the audience is complicit in Iago’s plot. In 3.3, however, when we gain the knowledge that Iago now wishes to kill Desdemona, a character who is solely virtuous, the audience, I believe, must turn on Iago.

CONCLUSION

As the play reaches its final lines, Othello kills himself. Who holds power now? Othello is dead, as is his world. Iago, the character who dominates and orchestrates the entirety of the action up until this moment, becomes dormant. He gives no motive for his action. He got what he wanted, or at least what he told the audience he wanted. The audience is never given closure, nor is Othello, only catharsis in the restoration of order from chaos. Shakespeare ultimately burdens his audience with the brutal truth that Iagos are everywhere, and the dangers of naïveté. The play is based, in its simplest form, around the relationship between Othello and Iago. This is a tragedy of misplaced trust and the torment of invisible villains.

Alexander Stephenson

Wider Reading – A Streetcar Named Desire

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Articles are a really useful way to find information for context as well as pertinent arguments for your essays. The more you understand about the texts, the easier it will be to bash out essays!

Here’s a list of articles I found particularly interesting, followed by condensed notes that I hope you’ll find helpful. (Please take a chance to read the article BEFORE you read the notes in case anything is unclear).

The ones I have marked *** are super useful (in my opinion)

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Simone de Beauvoir – Feminist Reading

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Simone de Beauvoir was a very prominent French philosopher of the 20th century. One of her most famous works was a book called ‘The Second Sex’, which provided an analysis of the position of women throughout history. It influenced many writers during the 20th century and since, including Margaret Atwood and Carol Ann Duffy. If you are studying ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘The World’s Wife’, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, or any other text which provides a feminist angle, ‘The Second Sex’ may be worth a read (or at least a few chapters).

I made notes on the Introduction and First Chapter to give you an idea of the ideas explored in the book – there are some very good quotes to provide a feminist/literary context analysis for your texts (especially Handmaid’s).

Simone de Beauvoir – The Second SexDownload

War of the Worlds – Analysis and Context

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I must confess my notes on ‘The War of the Worlds’ are slightly limited. We’ll start with the context and wider reading:

Martians and Marxism: a detailed history on the time in which Wells was writing. Very useful. You can use this to make a comparison between the contextual influences of your two chosen texts: there are bound to be some similarities. Please read the article before the notes. http://geekchocolate.co.uk/martians-and-marxism-a-socialist-critique-of-h-g-wellss-the-war-of-the-worlds/

Martians and MarxismDownload

The following are articles focused on 3 different aspects of the novel and its contextual influences – the symbolism of spiders, the journalism industry (explains many of the literary techniques in the novel) and the origin of the form of the invasion story:

Spiders and OthersDownload

These notes are a collation of research about Surrey, the setting of the novel, in the late 19th – early 20th century. Try to relate the impact of the events (such as industrial expansion and multiculturalism) to events in the book – e.g. industrial expansion, which Wells was against, influenced the technologically superior martians and their easy destruction of humanity (a metaphor for wells’ prediction of the impact of industry).

Surrey in the 19th CenturyDownload

These are my notes on War of the Worlds (most of which came from Mrs R) – most of the techniques in the novel are used in the first 11 or so chapters of the novel and hence repeated after that. I hope they are still helpful.

War AnalysisDownload