Othello by William Shakespeare Essay Guide (HSC Module B)

1Introduction

Today, we’ll be looking at William Shakespeare’s play Othello (1603) in the updated HSC Syllabus. Below is an unpacking of the new syllabus description for HSC Module B.

From NESA: “Students develop detailed analytical and critical knowledge of a substantial literary text. Through increasingly informed personal responses to the text in its entirety, students understand and appreciate the text’s distinctive qualities, notions of meaning, and significance. Students study ONE prescribed text, focusing on an analysis of the text’s construction, content and language. This enables students to develop informed personal perspectives of the text as well as an understanding of its cultural contribution, basing their judgements on evidence drawn from their critical reading. They evaluate the context of the text’s composition and reception, investigate and evaluate the perspectives of others, and explore the ideas in the text, further strengthening their personal perspectives.”

Important things to note:

1. increasingly informed and personal responses to the text in its entirety (need to get quotes from beginning, middle and end, and develop PERSONAL response so you can use first person e.g. the play has formed my understanding of social structures in Elizabethan England”. Module B is the only module where you can use first person in your response. While the majority of teachers support that, some schools still insist you using third person, so just refer to yourself as “the audience” if your teacher discourages 1st person) (think about how all parts of the text work together to form a cohesive text)
2. significance (refers to the enduring value of the text)
3. text’s composition and reception (“reception” means you need to talk about how the play affected Elizabethan audiences and also audiences of today)

Let’s explore the main ideas of Othello:

2Deception

Manipulation and deceit as instruments used to distort reality. Shakespeare reveals how Machiavellian pragmatism and calculated deceit and artifice cause disorder within interpersonal relationships. This problem is registered through Iago’s manipulation in which he blurs the line between appearance and reality to exploit the perception of others in his baseless malignancy. Shakespeare reminds audiences of the past and present on how disorder and the degeneration of reality is facilitated by the callous and morally perverted individual.

3Jealousy

Shakespeare reminds responders of how jealousy is caustic and self-destructive to one’s mindset and behaviour, corroding the rationality of the individual (envy blurs the individual’s ability to discern the truth). Throughout the play, Othello’s psyche degenerates and grows increasingly unstable because of his jealousy which obscures his rationality/capacity to discern appearance versus reality.

As the tragic hero, Othello’s hamartia is rooted in his belief that Desdemona is unfaithful, entitling him to exact self-administered justice informing Iago that “my bloody thoughts with violent pace / Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love / Till that a capable and wide revenge / Swallow them up” .

4Self-doubt due to racism

Racial alterity seeds insecurity within the individual and thus makes them prone to manipulation and alienated from society. Despite Othello’s social standing and relationship with the beautiful Desdemona, his otherness is continually referenced by his society which positions him as an outsider within his context thus establishing inferiority to which he is acutely aware of throughout the play’s entirety. Shakespeare draws upon the racial discourse of his English context and the xenophobic attitudes that existed towards people of non-European backgrounds which led to the general social and cultural consensus that people like Othello were inherently ‘different’.

5Final thoughts

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