Othello - Black and white imagery

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Black and White imagery

description

a presentation on black and white imagery found in Shakespeare's play Othello. Goes with the song black or white by Michael Jackson behind it

Transcript of Othello - Black and white imagery

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Black and White

imagery

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‘Even now, now, very now an old black ram is tupping your white yew’

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‘Even now, now, very now an old black ram is tupping your white yew’

‘Black’ is the colour of night, or ‘evil’. It can also represent ideas such as power, wealth, mystery, fear, unhappiness, sadness and anger. Many of these we can relate to Othello’s character at some point in the play.

‘White’ represents purity, innocence, goodness and virginity. It juxtaposes the colour black and the quote suggests it’s unnatural for them to be together. It paints Othello as a savage bully who is using his size to take advantage of Brabanto's small, innocent daughter.

Immediately marks a difference between Othello and his European peers.

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‘Even now, now, very now an old black ram is tupping your white yew’

Repetition of ‘now’ places emphasis on the importance and urgency of the action being carried out.

Vulgar and animalist language used in description. Graphic imagery making something romantic into something disturbing and an unwelcoming thought.

Iago equates Othello's ethnicity with bestiality

List of 3 – a powerful rhetoric device.

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If you’re thinkin’ about my baby, it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

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Light and dark are again juxtaposed

 ’And, noble signior, If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black’ Although this is a compliment for

Othello, colour stereotyping is still portrayed - Othello was expected to be the bad person due to the colour of his skin.

Colour imagery used to talk Brabantio out of his prejudices

The Duke's statement is ironic, since Othello is black, but truthful, because his soul is good and light. 

Distinct separation between black and white people

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If you’re thinkin’ about my baby, it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

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More subtle black and white imagery

Most of the scenes in which Iago 'furthers his evil plan' are set at night, as are other scenes of chaos and sources of disaster. For example, the actual elopement of Othello and Desdemona; most of Iago's meetings with Roderigo; all the actions carried out by Roderigo to further Iago's plans – rousing Brabantio, getting Cassio drunk and into a fight, and Desdemona's murder. (plot spoiler, sorry!)

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‘Haply,

for I

am

black’

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‘Hell and night, shall bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.’

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Black and white are symbols of good and evil. They are also a pair, so without white as the symbol of good you cannot fully understand the idea of black as evil. In Othello Shakespeare plays with the traditional conception of black and white and good and evil in society and culture. Shakespeare assigns the ‘good’ character, Othello, black ethnicity and the ‘evil’ character, Iago, white ethnicity.

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I’m not gunna spend my life being a colour

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‘Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow cell!’

‘Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow cell!’

‘Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow cell!’

‘Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow cell!’

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If you’re thinkin’ about my baby, it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

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The constant references of dark versus light work well as a parallel to the theme of good versus evil running throughout the play.

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If you’re thinkin’ of being my brother, it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

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The theme and imagery of black and white is used throughout the play to metaphorically represent events at the time. Eventually, the light and love between Desdemona and Othello falls into darkness and despair, ultimately ending with the "black devil" of despair and darkness triumphing violently in the final act.

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‘O, the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!’

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‘Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom of such a thing as thou’

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‘My name, that was as fresh as Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black as mine own face.’

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‘Put out the light, and then put out the light.’

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