OL Past Exam Questions Ordinary Level 2008 – Sample Answers
1. (a) Do you feel sorry for Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, when he learns that she has married Othello? Explain your answer.
(10)
In some ways I do feel sorry for Brabantio when he learns that his daughter, Desdemona, has married Othello. Desdemona clearly deceived her father because Brabantio finds it difficult to believe that his daughter has left home. Brabantio confirms her deception when he says to Othello, ‘Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: / She has deceived her father, and may thee.’ Much later in the play the audience learns that Brabantio dies of a broken heart, so upset is he that his daughter left him. This encourages my pity. However, Brabantio’s aggressive behaviour and irrational suspicion of Othello undermines my
sympathy. When Brabantio confronts Othello he looks to start a fight. It is only Othello’s calming words that prevent violence. Brabantio uses racist stereotyping to describe Othello and seems appalled that his daughter would marry a black man. He says to Othello that Desdemona would never ‘incur a general mock, / Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom / Of such a thing as thou – to fear, not to delight!’ Brabantio then hot-headedly accuses Othello of bewitching Desdemona. This is based on Brabantio’s racist suspicion of Othello.
It seems clear that Desdemona would not have been able to marry the man she loved if she had asked her father’s permission. Although I can appreciate that Desdemona and Othello’s marriage may have come as a shock to Brabantio, his racist attitude takes away from any pity I may have for him.
(b) From your reading of the play, why do you think Desdemona falls in love with Othello? Explain your answer.
(10)
We learn in the first act of the play how Desdemona fell in love with Othello. When Brabantio accuses Othello of witchcraft, Othello defends himself by providing an account of his relationship with Desdemona. Othello remembers that Desdemona was first drawn to him by his exciting tales of adventure. He recounts how Desdemona was often moved to tears by the suffering he experienced as a soldier. Othello explains, ‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them.’
Desdemona herself tells the Duke that she fell in love with Othello for his bravery: ‘I saw
Othello’s visage in his mind, And to his honour and his valiant parts / Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.’ It seems clear from both Othello’s and Desdemona’s accounts of their relationship that Desdemona fell in love with Othello because he portrayed himself as a brave adventurer who overcame many hardships.
2. ‘Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.’ Describe the murder of Desdemona by Othello in Act 5, Scene 2.
(10)
The murder of Desdemona by Othello in the play’s final scene is a heartbreaking moment. As Desdemona sleeps, Othello reflects on what he is preparing to do. Othello is deeply conflicted. On the one hand he recognises his love for his wife and appears reluctant to harm her: ‘I’ll not shed her blood, / Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, / And smooth as monumental alabaster.’ He understands that there is no way of undoing a murder, and that his actions will be final: ‘When I have plucked the rose, / I cannot give it vital growth again. / It must needs wither.’
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Othello
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