This scene from Act 1 of Othello introduces the main characters. Iago is bitter about being passed over for a promotion and plots to get revenge on Othello. He convinces Roderigo to help him wake Desdemona's father Brabantio and tell him she has run away with Othello. Brabantio is enraged because Othello is a Moor and sees the marriage as inappropriate. Racial epithets are used to dehumanize Othello and inflame tensions. The scene establishes themes of appearance vs. reality, racial hostility, and the objectification of Desdemona.

1. OTHELLO
ACT ONE SCENE ONE

2. THIS LESSON’S
OBJECTIVE
• To familiarize ourselves
with Act One
• To identify
representations of major
characters
• To identify and discuss
aspects of construction

3. LANGUAGE TO LOOK OUT FOR
• Discourse
• Juxtaposition
• Setting
• Symbolism
• Lighting
• Double entendre
• Paradox
• Figurative language
• Cliché
• Imagery
• Foreshadowing
• Racial epithets
• Themes

4. Act I Scene 1
• Othello begins in the city of Venice, at night
• Roderigo is having a discussion with Iago, who is
bitter at being passed up as Othello's lieutenant.
• Though Iago had greater practice in battle and in
military matters, Cassio, a man of strategy but of little
experience, was named lieutenant by Othello.
• Iago says that he only serves Othello to further
himself, and makes shows of his allegiance only for
his own gain • He admits that his nature is not at all
what it seems.
• Iago is aware that the daughter of Brabantio,
Desdemona , has run off with Othello, the black
warrior of the Moors.
• Brabantio knows nothing of this coupling
• Iago decides to enlist Roderigo, who lusts after
Desdemona, and awaken Brabantio with screams
that his daughter is gone

5. • At first, Brabantio dismisses
these cries in the dark
• He realizes his daughter is
not there, he gives the news
some credence.
• Roderigo is the one speaking
most to Brabantio, but Iago is
there too, hidden, yelling
unsavory things about Othello
• Brabantio panics, and calls
for people to try and find his
daughter
• Iago leaves, not wanting
anyone to find out that he
betrayed his own leader
• Brabantio begins to search
for his daughter.

6. • OTHELLO IS NOT IN
THIS SCENE
• He is constructed
entirely in his absence by
his enemies
• Their culturally hostile
representation of Othello
would be familiar to
1600s English audiences

7. IAGO
• Iago seems to do a great deal of character
analysis and exposition for the audience
• He divulges his purpose in serving Othello,
and the kind of man he is.
• Appearance vs. Reality is a crucial theme in
Iago's story – He enacts a series of roles, from
advisor to confidante – He appears to be helping
people though he is only acting out of his twisted
self-interest.
• "In following [Othello] I follow but myself," Iago
also professes
• This is a paradox in terms, but is revealing of
Iago's purposes in serving Othello.
• His sophisticated use of paradox and
figurative language is revealing of his dark
character;
• He uses the cliché "I will wear my heart upon
my sleeve" to convey how his heart is false, and
his shows of emotion are also falsified
• He turns this cliché into something more dark, fierce,
when he adds the image of the birds tearing at this heart
• He has foreshadowed the great deceptions that he will
engineer, and the sinister qualities that make up his core

8. • The key to Iago's character
is in the line "I am not what I
am“ • Roderigo should take
this as a warning, but fails
to.
• Iago delights in other
characters’ lack of ability to
identify his foreshadowing.
• Everything which Iago
presents himself as is a
facade
• This first scene represents
the peak of Iago's honesty
about himself with another
character.

9. OTHELLO- A MATTER OF
DISCOURSE
• Racial hostility and xenophobia/ Islamophobia is at
the core of Othello's story and are already positioned
to surface.
• When Roderigo refers to Othello, he calls him "the
thick lips“
• Racial epithets are derogatory expressions,
understood to convey contempt and hatred toward
their targets
• This reduction to a body part dehumanises him,
singling out one prominent characteristic of Othello's
foreignness and black heritage as somehow
‘repulsive, derisive. The audience is expected to at
least know of this cultural attitude to non-anglo
features.
• This racially loaded discourse betrays a deep
cultural hostility towards of Othello based on his
ethnicity – which even with his being a Christian and
a highly decorated soldier and military strategist is
still his single most identifying feature (he is ‘the
Moor’)

10. The Vile Dehumanizing Of
Othello
• Another element that surfaces repeatedly in the play
is the use of animal imagery; "an old black ram is
tipping your white ewe," Iago yells to Brabantio
• • The use of dehumanizing, animalistic imagery is
used in many places in the play to convey immorality
and illicit passion, as it does in this instance.
• Iago also compares Othello to a "Barbary horse"
coupling with Desdemona, and uses dehumanizing,
animal imagery to reinforce a lustful picture of Othello.
Vilification of black men as primitive and lustful, both
threatening and ridiculous. He suggests the progeny
of the union would be similarly ‘sub’ human, bestial.
This is pure unadulterated xenopobia.
• Iago's statement is doubly potent, since it not only
condemns Othello for his alleged lust, but also plays
on Brabantio's misgivings about Othello's colour
• The juxtaposition of black and white, in connection
with the animal imagery, is meant to make this image
very repellent, and to inflame Brabantio to anger and
action.

11. • The play starts with Rodrigo angry at having, in his
mind, lost Desdemona to Othello
• Her social currency and identity is always conditional on
others (men):
• For someone to have sex with (passive partner)
• Actual wife
• Daughter
• The discourse conveys ownership "an old black ram is
tupping your white ewe," Iago yells to Brabantio
• Her decision to marry is seen by her father as a criminal
act. She has literally stolen ‘herself’ and the social
currency she possessed from her father.
• He sees the marriage as ‘treason of the blood’ again an
example of Shakespearian double entendre that exploits
the ambiguity of language
• It is critical of the inclusion of North African heritage
into the family
• It is critical of her refusal of his right to chose her
husband
• It suggests marriage is a social contract between
families for mutual benefit
• It foreshadows Brabantio’s social and physical death
off stage
DESDEMONA – WHO PAYS FOR FREE WILL?

12. Dialogue Plus+ Imagery and
Setting
• Important to this scene is the fact
that it is held in darkness
• Like the beginning of Hamlet, things
are unsteady and eerie, and disorder
rules.
• Symbolism: with Brabantio's call
for light, there is a corresponding call
for some kind of order: – darkness
vs. light – order vs. disorder – Both
important juxtapositions within the
play – they highlight the status of
situations
• These themes will appear again at

13. Some examples of this information in action
The
question
suggested
that texts
mimic the
context of
production
regardless
of temporal
setting.

14. The
question
suggested
that texts
position
audience’s
to adopt
cultural
attitudes
that serve
the status

15. DID WE ACHIEVE THIS
LESSON’S
OBJECTIVES?
• To familiarize ourselves
with Act One Scene One
• To identify
representations of major
characters
• To identify and discuss
aspects of construction