Tag Archives: Analysis passage

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Othello’s Farewell Speech

Soft you, a word or two before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know’t.

No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,

Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their med’cinable gum. Set you down this.

And say besides that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog

And smote him–thus. [He stabs himself.](5.2.397-417)

 

While saying this words, Othello is stabbing himself. How intense is this speech when you know that the person is saying his last words while killing himself. He tries to summarize his live in a few words, but not as a biography where we can see all kind of events through someone’s life. This farewell speech it is done for leave a good reference about himself. He tries to gain the respect and the recognition that he thinks he deserves.

He starts making a reference to his serving life. We can notice that he was not as important and relevant as he would like to, when he said “I have done the state some service, and they know’t.” He fight and serve the city while he did not get any recognition from that because they did not even realize about his effort.

3686134_origThen he continues leaving some remarkable words about his love with Desdemona. He remains clean by saying “Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away”. Interesting words, we can see that even though Othello just killed his love, Desdemona, he only wants to leave a good reference of him saying that he love her but not wisely, meaning that he was not wise enough to know that Desdemona did not cheat on him.

Because he does not want to end up as the jealous person of the story, he said, “of one not easily jealous”, meaning that if he get jealous it has to be a big deal where everyone easily gets jealous and not only himself. By saying this he tries to get rid of the guiltiness and putting himself as a normal person that everyone in this case would have killed Desdemona.

Also he realize that he had lost his love, his most precious thing in his life, adding the comparison Desdemona and the pearl by saying “Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away”

He ends up with his life talking about how he killed a non truly,fair venetian “a malignant and a turbaned Turk’ for the party and the glory of Venetia. To be remembered in people’s mind as a courage person to be respected and admired.

Intense reproduction of Othello’s Last Speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWt5df28pdQ

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Shakespeare’s Writing

Shakespeare-ComputerReading this play, Othello, we can find so many difficulties reading his unfamiliar and twist words. Especially in today’s world where everyone is so used to blogs, webpages where almost all the information is update to today’s language plus it is summarize to find the key point as soon as you enter in the page. We are so used to just take a quick look into the page to find the information that we find difficulties when we have to focus in long and ancient text. This is the reason why many books came with some notes attached to the page we are reading to  give us a better understanding of those twist and unfamiliar words.

In the case of Othello’s play we find many unfamiliar words because of the time period, the beautification of the language, or meanings that simply had changed. Also we can find some twist in the syntax of the phrases.

Some of this words are obvious while reading the text even though we do not use them nowadays. A good example it is “certes”(1.1.17), meaning certainly. On the contrary some of them are completely unfamiliar because of the time period that we have to take a look to the notes to understand their meaning as “Sblood” (1.1.4), the christ blood , or “Forsooth” (1.1.20), as in truth.

Then we have the ones that are unfamiliar because of the beautification of the language, we still using them but with another meaning. It is well shown in the case of “circumstance” (1.1.14) that does not have the meaning of a condition related with and event, in this case means ceremonious talk. This one it is the most problematic one because it can lead you to a wrong conclusion or a wrong thought, and you might get lost along the way.

Another confused change that Shakespeare made it is in the syntax of the sentences. He alters the position of the subject and the verb as in the case of  “says he”(1.1.17)  Since I am from Spain, with a romance language, I can well notice this twists and understand right away what he is trying to say; because in the romance poetic language it is a resource widely used to beautify the sound and the story telling.  For those who ignore this languages it is a hard and confused task that they have to make while reading that might get them confused of who was the subject making the action.

 

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Who is The Moor, The Barbary Horse, or The He?

The name of Shakespeare´s book it is Othello, therefore my question is why the first act they do not even mention the word Othello and they use ‘Moor’ or another adjectives to called him?

The first characters that appear are the lieutenant, Iago, and Roderigo. Both of them highly intervene in the play but none of them mention Othello´s name. As the paly it is called ‘‘Othello’’ you might think that the name that will be the most pronounced it will that one, but it is actually the less called or the one that no one says. And my question is why?

 

  •  He is referred as ‘‘he’’ or ‘‘him1-239x300’’ throughout the entire Act. This both pronouns are commonly and well use and above all they do not have a classist background or a racist layer behind it.
  •  However in other cases he is referred as ‘‘The thick lips’’ ( 1.1.72 ) making a reference to the typical protruding lips that a black person has. Not only he is discriminate it by this name.
  •  They also called him ‘‘Barbary Horse’’ (1.1.125) making from him an brown big animal far from the domestic area. How racist and intense is this nickname but at the same time how descriptive it is. Iago describe Othello to his girlfriend’s father, the Senator, as this bestial animal that has sexual appetite.
  •  The last nickname, and the most important one that Othello has is ‘‘The Moor’’(1.2.72), including in the main cover of the book as a complement of the title. It is the most important one because it does not only give us an idea of a black person it also gives as a religious and geographic idea of a Muslim African Black from Mauritania.


This names that he was given all are given with malice and they signify that he is dark skinned and African Black also we know that he is a men for the pronoun that they referred when they talk to him plus the title of the book. This is a way of keeping anonymous the name of the Othello and by analyzing the first act it gives a sense of mystery and how you can picture him in your mind just with reading the racist but in a sense comic names that Shakespeare use to refer to him.