"From this time forth I never will speak word." -- Iago

 We finsihed the play today! I told you guys it would be a blood Act V and I wasn't kidding. But first, we wrote a paragraph about why Othello thought it justice that Desdemona be strangled in her bed. Here's one of the paragraphs that you came up with:

      In William Shakespeare’s play Othello, Othello thinks there is justice in strangling Desdemona in her bed. Iago tells Othello, “Do it not with poison; strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated” (23). This shows that Othello will strangle Desdemona in her own bed. This is an example of justice because he is going to kill her where she committed her crime. Therefore, Othello thinks there is justice in strangling Desdemona in her bed, because her crimes destroyed his mind.

This is an example of a well-developed paragraph. The structure is perfect, and the analysis is strong. Please use this paragraph as another model for you to emulate.

After that, we breezed through the rest of Act IV because you were supposed to read that for homework. Lodovico brings a letter to Othello stating that he is supposed to be sent back to Venice. Desdemona is excited with this news, but Othello thinks it's because she'll have more time with Cassio. He strikes her, and she has no idea why. She leaves and Othello agrees to go back to Venice. Afterwards, Iago convinces Roderigo to kill Cassio.

We role played all of Act V and I was very impressed with how many actors we have in the room! A lot of you stepped up to the plate and really gave your peers a show. Here's a quick synopsis:

--Roderigo and Cassio get in a fight. Cassio stabs Roderigo. Iago comes and stabs Cassio, without him knowing.

--Othello thinks Iago has done his job of killing Cassio, so he goes off to kill Desdemona.

--Iago comes in, pretending like he didn't do anything, and asks Cassio what happened. Cassio points to Roderigo and Iago then goes and kills Roderigo. Roderigo realizes, right before he dies, that Iago played him.

--Othello comes to Desdemona's room to kill her. She swears she's innocent and asks to call Cassio in so he can prove she's telling the truth. Othello says Cassio is dead, and then smothers Desdemona with a pillow.

--Emilia comes in and finds Desdemona dead, and screams for help. She finally reveals the truth about stealing the handkerchief, and Iago kills her because he's furious she told the truth.

--Iago swears never to speak ever again and not explain why he did the things he did.

--Othello gives his final soliloquy and then kills himself with a final kiss upon Desdemona's lips.

For homework, you need to chunk and summarize Othello's final speech. Tomorrow in class, we will go over it, but, remember, you need to figure out how to do these things on your own.

Happy reading! And thanks for such a great class today! =)

DEETS:

In-class:

--Justice paragraph

--Act IV summary

--Act V Role play

HW:

--Chunk and summarize Othello's final words