Writer's Techniques (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

Writer's Techniques

Understanding literary form in your exam

When you study literary form in Othello, you're working with Assessment Objective 2 (AO2). This asks you to examine the ways in which meanings are created and shaped within literary texts. Rather than simply describing what happens in the play or who the characters are, you need to explain how and why Shakespeare makes particular choices. For example, you should explore how Shakespeare develops his characters, how he structures the play, and how he uses different genres to create specific effects.

Throughout your essay, you should consistently analyse these features, focusing on how Shakespeare achieves his effects and what impact this has on the audience. By examining literary techniques, structure, and genre together, you'll produce a more sophisticated response.

Key exam approach

It's helpful to learn specific terminology to describe and explain features of the text in your answer. Assessment Objective 2 should be woven throughout your essay, not treated as a separate section. You should constantly analyse the text, examining how and why the author makes particular choices, rather than simply listing what techniques appear.

Genres

Shakespeare draws on several different literary genres when creating Othello. Understanding these influences helps us appreciate how the play creates meaning and affects its audience.

Tragedy

The primary genre Shakespeare uses in Othello is Ancient Greek tragedy. During the Renaissance period when Shakespeare was writing, Ancient Greek and Roman traditions experienced a revival across Europe. Shakespeare incorporates the conventions of Greek tragedy throughout several of his plays.

The play follows the typical structure of a tragedy. A striking and noble protagonist experiences a reversal of fate caused by a key flaw or error in judgement, which leads to widespread suffering. This usually results in the hero's own death alongside the deaths of numerous other characters.

The tragic hero and hamartia

A tragic hero typically possesses a hamartia, which means a primary fatal weakness that causes his downfall. Othello's hamartia is generally understood to be jealousy. This character flaw allows Iago to trick and manipulate him into doubting Desdemona's faithfulness, which leads him to kill his wife and subsequently take his own life.

Anagnorisis and catharsis

This represents a moment of cleansing, clearing the soul of wrongdoing. When spectating the play, the audience experiences a similar cleansing and feels a powerful emotional release. This moment of realisation always arrives too late, which contributes to the tragedy of the situation: the hero is prepared to make amends but, because of his own actions, this is no longer possible.

Dramatic irony and foreknowledge

Shakespeare's use of the genre of tragedy creates a sense of inevitability and hopelessness throughout Othello. The audience understands Othello's fate from the very beginning of the play, as the tragic protagonist knows he is doomed. This allows Shakespeare to incorporate dramatic irony, where the audience possesses knowledge that the characters lack.

Travel writing

Another genre that heavily influenced Shakespeare was travel writing. This was a widespread contemporary genre made popular by European travellers exploring previously unvisited lands and islands, such as the New World of America. These travellers would subsequently document their experiences, often in ways which embellished the truth and exoticised the people and animals they encountered. Their enthusiastic accounts often blurred the boundary between imagination and reality. This genre was firmly established by the late 16th Century when Shakespeare was writing. One of the most famous examples of Western travel writing is The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a medieval text published over 200 years before Shakespeare's birth.

Othello's backstory as travel writing

Shakespeare most explicitly incorporates the genre of travel writing in Othello's speech about his background (Act I Scene III). A key defining feature of the travel writing genre is that it presented itself as a first-person eye-witness account, though it drew on previous writing and blended myth with fact. Although Othello describes his own backstory, the fact that Shakespeare draws on the genre of travel writing makes us question to what extent he embellishes it.

Creating mystery and exoticism

Shakespeare's inclusion of this genre in his play heightens the sense of mystery and exoticism that surrounds Othello. Even after describing his backstory, Othello remains unknown to us; we know very little about his origins as we cannot believe that this story is entirely truthful. Travel writing was a genre based on exoticising the unknown, and this speech therefore exoticises Othello even further. The audience also gains a sense that this speech is a performance: he has recounted it many times previously, and he tells it in a fantastical way to please the white Venetian audience who keenly listens to him.

Morality play

Elements of the morality play genre also appear in Othello. This genre originated in the medieval period and taught Christian morals through its plot. It told the story of a sinner's journey from damnation through to repentance and redemption. Along the way, the protagonist would be tempted by personifications of Good and Evil, such as angels and demons.

Characters as symbolic forces

Several of the characters can be said to symbolise Goodness. For example, Desdemona is associated with whiteness and purity, and when she pleads with Othello to forgive Cassio she is encouraging him to show Christian mercy. On the other hand, Iago (who embodies Evil) has orchestrated Cassio's demise and manipulates Othello, drawing out his jealousy and aggression. Furthermore, in Act III Scene III when Othello is convinced of Desdemona's infidelity, Iago again represents the forces of Evil vying for Othello's soul, whereas Othello's conscience represents the forces of Good which are attempting to convince him to remain true to his wife. Othello is, of course, ultimately tempted by the lure of evil, and he has no chance of repentance.

Externalising internal conflict

Whilst none of the forces of Good and Evil in the play are direct agents of God or the Devil as they are in a medieval morality play, we can certainly see the influences of this genre in Shakespeare's writing. He uses Desdemona, Othello, and Iago to externalise the deliberation which is occurring in Othello's mind between staying true to Desdemona (remaining good) and succumbing to a jealous rage (falling to sin and evil).

Structure

Five-act structure

Othello consists of five acts. This is typical of a tragedy. Across the five acts, we track the tragic hero's rise, followed by a reversal of his fortunes (usually in Act III), leading to his fall throughout Acts IV and V, and culminating in his death at the end of the play.

Repetitions and dramatic parallels

Several key repetitions appear across the play that create dramatic parallels and draw our attention to how rapidly relationships and characters have deteriorated:

Narrowing focus and claustrophobia

The play narrows as it progresses: it opens in Venice, then moves to Cyprus. However, the external plot of the Venetian-Ottoman War is removed and the play's focus ultimately comes down to a single bedroom. As Othello becomes increasingly obsessed with his relationship and with Desdemona's behaviour, all outside forces become insignificant. The setting becomes claustrophobic for the audience as well as for the characters.

Absence of subplot

Character prominence and stage time

We can also consider structure in terms of how much characters speak. If one character is particularly prominent in a scene, it creates an impression of their dominance. Iago is structurally dominant throughout the play. Out of all the characters, he has the most on-stage time. Although Othello and Iago both have soliloquies, the latter has notably several more. As a result, Shakespeare creates an impression of his power. His on-stage time corresponds to his importance and authority in the plot.

The soliloquy

Language

The importance of words and manipulation

In your exam answer, it is important to consistently analyse language and techniques that Shakespeare uses, for example the imagery and metaphors. There are also a few general key points to remember about the type of language used in Othello.

Shakespeare constructs the characters through language, so we can examine what the characters' language and ways of speaking reveal about them.

Blank verse and iambic pentameter

Much of Othello's speech in the first half of the play is in blank verse. This refers to unrhymed lines of poetry which are written in iambic pentameter. This means that each line is made up of 10 syllables (5 sets of 2) and the stress as we read these lines is 'dee-DUM dee-DUM'.

Language breakdown mirroring mental breakdown

The breakdown of the poetic blank verse as the play progresses mirrors Othello's own mental breakdown. His sense of self is fractured when he believes his wife has cheated on him, and so his language also becomes fractured:

Deterioration of trust and understanding

The relationship between Desdemona and Othello deteriorates when they can no longer trust or understand the language that the other speaks. For example, Desdemona asks her husband 'what doth your speech import? / I understand a fury in your words. / But not the words' (Act IV Scene II).

Iago's linguistic manipulation

Language is also very important to Iago's character. He frequently slips between prose and verse, easily adapting his linguistic style to suit different audiences and purposes. We never really fully understand Iago because his language is constantly shifting throughout the play. He easily manipulates his language and his style of speaking, just as he easily manipulates several characters. He is a slippery and untrustworthy character, and Shakespeare portrays this through the way that he speaks.

Remember!