Faculty: English Group: Full name: Instructions

Seminar 2. Task on “Othello” by William Shakespeare.

(All the tests are taken from the book “Othello” adapted version earlier loaded on the platform)

Faculty:___ English

Group: ____

Full name: ____ ________________________

Instructions:

1) Read the adapted book “Othello” by William Shakespeare on the platform!!!

2) Answer the questions accordingly: the answers should be taken from the book mentioned above.

1. What is the theme of the first act?

Answer: _____in the first scene, he complains that Cassio has been promoted instead of him even though “I am worth no worse a place”____________________________________________________________________

2. Which themes and images are introduced in this first scene?

Answer: _______Jealousy. Jealousy motivates the central conflicts of Othello: Iago's resentment of Othello, and Othello's suspicion of Desdemona. Iago is immediately revealed as a jealous character__________________________________________________________________

3. Who is Othello? (Describe the character)

Answer: _____The play’s protagonist and hero. A Christian Moor and general of the armies of Venice, Othello is an eloquent and physically powerful figure, respected by all those around him. In spite of his elevated status, he is nevertheless easy prey to insecurities because of his age, his life as a soldier, and his race____________________________________________________________________

4. What did Iago and Roderigo call Othello?

Answer: ______Iago and Roderigo call Othello racists, derogatory names because Othello is a black man and they are also mad at him due to the fact that he didn't give Iago the promotion.___________________________________________________________________

5. What images are reversed in “Othello” and describe them?

Answer: ____These images of robbery, beastliness, and bedevilment are prophetic. _____________________________________________________________________

6.Who is Desdemona? (Describe the character)

Answer: __a wife of Othello.__Her beauty, loyalty, grace and innocence are her most important traits. She is good and kind hearted and from a noble family but lacks the penetrating wit of Portia. _____________________________________________________________________

7. Which scene emphasizes the sense of concealment and confused perception?

Answer: ___The arrangement of screen space is known as mise-en-scene, literally "putting into a scene" or ... It modulates and maintains audience interest, and emphasizes details of the action.______________________________________________________________________

8. Where does most of the play take place?

Answer: _____Othello takes place in Venice, the famous Italian city, and Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea colonized by the Venetians at the time. The play is set during the early modern period, roughly Shakespeare's time in history.____________________________________________________________________

9. Who is Iago? (Describe the character)

Answer: ____Iago is the antagonist in the play Othello by William Shakespeare. He is a manipulative man who develops a plan to destroy the lives of those he feels have wronged him. Iago is upset about not being promoted and seeks revenge on his boss, Othello, and the man who took the job he wanted, Cassio._____________________________________________________________________

10. “Thou art a villain” To whom do these words belong?

Answer:

_____________Brabantio______________________________________________________________

11. Describe Othello from two different perspectives.

Answer: __tragedy _______________________________________________________________________

12. Who is Roderigo? (Describe the character)

Answer: _____ He is a dissolute Venetian lusting after Othello's wife Desdemona.____________________________________________________________________

13. When did Othello's confidence crisis begin to work?

Answer: _______Othello is dangerously impulsive; once he has become convinced Desdemona is unfaithful, he vows that “thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood be spotted” . Iago’s psychological torment has broken Othello to the point where he no longer knows what to believe, and cannot distinguish truth and lies.__________________________________________________________________

14. Why might Brabantio wish (or need) to see Desdemona the way he does? Could it be parental nostalgia, or a matter of his being seen in public as a good parent, with a ‘respectable’ and obedient family?

Answer: _______Why is Brabantio convinced that Othello used drugs and spells to win over Desdemona? Brabantio is convinced that Othello used drugs and spells on Desdemona because he can't believe Desdemona would ever be involved with a Moor.__________________________________________________________________

15. Who is Cassio? (Describe the character)

Answer:_______Cassio is handsome, charming, and charismatic; as Iago notes when he starts to hatch his devious plan, “He hath a person and a smooth dispose / To be suspected, framed to make women false________________________________________________________________

16. Who said these words? “She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d, And I lov’d her that she did pity them”.

Answer: ________Othello _________________________________________________________________

17. How do others describe Desdemona?

Answer: _____Desdemona is a beautiful, young, white, Venetian debutante. And she's a total Daddy's girl... until she falls head over heels in love with Othello. She refuses to marry any of the rich, handsome Venetian men that everyone expects her to marry.____________________________________________________________________

18. Who is Emilia? (Describe the character)

Answer: __Although Emilia was previously accused of having an affair with Othello, her actions throughout the play portray a loyal and honest woman. She is certainly loyal to Iago when she gives him Desdemona's handkerchief, despite her instinct to return it to Desdemona instead. During this scene, she seems suspicious._______________________________________________________________________

19. Whose description of Desdemona as ‘a maiden never bold of spirit’ seems in error?

Answer: _______________Brabantio__________________________________________________________

20. Who is Bianca? (Describe the character)

Answer: Bianca is described in the play as a courtesan, essentially a prostitute. Under the best of circumstances, courtesans were kept women who were financially dependent upon and socially attached to the men they served. Bianca is Cassio's love interest in Othello. Cassio is an ambitious lieutenant under Othello's command._____________________________________________________________________________21. Which character feels that he has foreseen present events in his dreams?

Answer: _____heroism and love____________________________________________________________________

22. Who said that? “Even now, very now, an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe.’

Answer: _____lago____________________________________________________________________

23. Who is Brabantio? (Describe the character)

Answer: __He is a Venetian senator and the father of Desdemona. He has entertained Othello in his home countless times before the play opens, thus giving Othello and Desdemona opportunity to fall in love._______________________________________________________________________

24. Who describes Othello as having ‘a constant, loving, noble nature’?

Answer: _____lago____________________________________________________________________

25. Who thinks that Othello should be told about Cassio’s ‘infirmity’?

Answer: _______cassio__________________________________________________________________

26. Who said that? ‘What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst praise me?’

Answer: ___lago______________________________________________________________________

27. Give the references to Iago as an honest man and a judge of honesty in others from Act 3 Scene 3

Answer: ___Iago's power resides in these words: he poisons thought by posing as an honest man. The horrible irony of the scene continues______________________________________________________________________

28. Why does Desdemona lie about the whereabouts of the handkerchief?

Answer: __The handkerchief initially is a gift given to Desdemona by Othello as a love token. It is subsequently symbolically transformed into Desdemona's bedsheets, which she uses to reveal her true innocence and fidelity to Othello; and finally, Desdemona requests that the bedsheets be used to cover her as a death shroud._______________________________________________________________________

29. What is spotted with strawberries?

Answer: ___Ross further suggests that because the handkerchief is “spotted with strawberries” it may “represent Othello's distorted image of Desdemona as [a] perilously deceitful beauty, [and] as the adulterous and hypocritical fair woman”______________________________________________________________________

30. According to Iago, why was he awake to hear Cassio talk in his sleep about Desdemona?

Answer: ___in order to lie Othello______________________________________________________________________

31. Iago tells Roderigo that Othello has been commanded to go to what country?

Answer:

__________Roderigo, a wealthy and dissolute gentleman, complains to his friend Iago, an ensign, that Iago has not told him about the secret ..___________________________________________________________________

32. In whose company does Othello strike his wife?

Answer:

_________When Desdemona hears the news that she will be leaving Cyprus, she expresses her happiness, whereupon Othello strikes her.____________________________________________________________________

33. Who said that? ‘Was this fair paper, this most goodly book, / Made to write “whore” on?’

Answer:

____________Othello ________________________________________________________________

34. What is Desdemona’s final request to Othello?

Answer:

__________Desdemona declares she is guiltless, but when Emilia asks her who murdered her, she refuses to name Othello. "Nobody. I myself," Desdemona says. Desdemona finally dies asking Emilia to give Othello her love.___________________________________________________________________

35. Of what did Brabantio die?

Answer:

___________Brabantio's brother Graziano states that Brabantio died of grief after losing his daughter to Othello.__________________________________________________________________

36. Who is crying out to be let in as Othello kills Desdemona?

Answer:

______________Emilia

_______________________________________________________________

37. Who kills Roderigo?

Answer:

______________lago_______________________________________________________________

38. Who said that? ‘Thou hast not half the power to do me harm / As I have to be hurt.’

Answer:

___________emilia to othello __________________________________________________________________39. What are Desdemona’s last words?

Answer:

_____________Desdemona's final words are, “Nobody, I myself. Farewell. / Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell”________________________________________________________________

40. Is Othello a tragic victim or is he in any way responsible for his own fate?

Answer:

__________Hover for more information. Othello is primarily a victim in the play, although it's important to remember that he is a villain to the extent that he kills Desdemona. Othello is the victim of both Iago's manipulations and his own insecurities, both of which work together to produce tragic results.___________________________________________________________________