1. Othello Act III Key Scenes & Overview
Unit 3 Lesson 4
Othello Act III Key Scenes & Overview

2. Key Scenes Act III Scene 1, Clowning Around.
Cassio tries to humor Othello with musicians and entertainers. This scene contains a comic interlude complete with fart jokes. Seriously.

3. Key Scenes Act III Scene 3 (Key Scenes)
Othello sees Desdemona and Cassio talking suspiciously, and Iago begins planting innuendos about their relationship. Othello begins to feel ill when Desdemona speaks too well of Cassio, knocking the the handkerchief from her hand. Emilia finds the handkerchief and gives it to her husband, who plants it in Cassio’s chambers.
Bookmark Line 100: Iago plants the seed of jealousy
Key Quote:
“By heaven, he echoes me, As if there were some monster in his thought Too hideous to be shown.”

4. Key Scenes Bookmark Line 283: The Handkerchief Key Quote:
“I have a pain upon my forehead here”

5. Key Scenes --Bookmark Line 413: Cassio’s Dream Key Quote:
“I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep.”

6. Key Scenes --Bookmark Line 463: The unholy wedding Key Quote:
“Witness, you ever-burning lights above, You elements that clip us round about, Witness that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong’d Othello’s service!”

7. Key Scenes Act III Scene 4, “Magic in the Web of It”
Othello confronts Desdemona to confront her about the missing handkerchief. Bianca finds the handkerchief and confronts Cassio with it.

8. Evolution of CHARACTER Features of TEXT Significant SUBTEXT
Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
Significant ACTION
Evolution of CHARACTER
Features of TEXT
Significant SUBTEXT

9. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
ACTION: Important action in this act includes the loss of the handkerchief, which seems like yet another accident that works in Iago’s favor. One must also consider that Othello says he will walk among “the works,” meaning that the setting would include weaponry, caging, and artillery racks.
Although the physical setting is merely implied, the background to the action signifies the internal war Iago is waging on his victims. What’s more, Iago’s verbal acrobatics reach their peak here; Iago will simply draw Othello’s attention to Cassio and Desdemona’s secrecy, recalling the beginning of act II.

10. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
CHARACTER: The difference between internal conflict and external conflict becomes apparent. From one perspective, the one thing all of these characters have in common—even Iago—is the intense fear of disappointing others.
From Cassio’s insistence that Desdemona relentlessly hound Othello for him to Emilia’s oddly mysterious, out-of-character theft of Desdemona’s handkerchief, characters seem so motivated by fear of others’ judgement and spend so much time trying to please others that they do not see what’s right in front of them. . .

11. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
This is why Emilia plays a key role in Iago’s plot, as she will pick up the prized handkerchief that was Othello’s first gift to Desdemona. We are introduced to Bianca, who wants Cassio to marry her but is doomed in this pursuit.
Like all of the women in this play, she will be instrumental to Iago’s plot, as Iago will get Cassio to speak about her using sexual irreverence and even mockery. Othello will be positioned to hear this conversation, mistaking it for proof of Cassio’s affair with Othello’s new wife.

12. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
TEXT: Iago’s wordplay and manipulation of the truth (or, WITH the truth?) escalates into wicked brilliance. He uses puns, innuendo, and implication. Othello’s language morphs and mutates into Iago’s as Othello becomes more and more convinced that Desdemona is unfaithful.
Othello’s iambic eloquence and elevated vocabulary will turn into fragments; his monologues will disintegrate into grunts and irrational outbursts, leading even to an actual epileptic seizure.

13. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
The handkerchief is introduced in this act, and it becomes the “smoking gun” upon which the tragedy hangs; as a symbol, it holds the greatest weight in the play, as it stands for everything the play is about: Jealousy, diseased ideas, rank and reputation, chaos and disintegrating love, and even racism in the sense that Desdemona’s “fairness” is stained by her loss of reputation, and Othello’s “blackness” escalates as he begins to act like the 1600’s stereotype of the irrational, violent, lusty Moor.
Ironically, both Desdemona and Othello begin to act like stereotypes of their worst selves, and this will destroy them both in body and in soul.

14. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes SUBTEXT
HELL AND NIGHT/BESTIAL IMAGERY: Irony and Paradox continue to be major tonal elements as the audience watches Othello grow more and more like Iago. Othello’s doubts over his marriage reveal some major flaws in his heroic character, in particular trust of others and the inability to deal with ambiguity. If he can’t see the world as right and born of heaven, he quickly changes his allegiance to violence and hellish thoughts.
“MONSTROUS BIRTH” MOTIF: Irony abounds, as Iago’s relationship to Othello grows stronger and stronger as Othello unit in their plan to murder Desdemona and Cassio. Paradoxically, Iago and Othello “consummate” their marriage when they exchange vows to murder. Metaphorically, Cassio has taken Othello’s place as Desdemona’s husband; Iago will take Desdemona’s place as Othello’s wife.

15. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes
JEALOUSY THEME: Further irony will ensue as we see Othello tell Desdemona that the missing handkerchief does indeed have magic “in the web of it.” Watch for all of the warnings we’ve seen so far tragically come true. Some examples:
Othello does not use witchcraft to win Desdemona, but he resorts to using its black reputation to frighten his wife.
Brabantio has warned Othello to look to his wife; Iago will make sure he remembers that warning.
Iago has promised to pour “disease” into Othello’s ear; once Othello is convinced he has been cuckolded, he will ask for poison to kill his wife.
Othello has been accused of wiichcraft, but Iago is the real magician.

16. Act III A.C.T.S. Notes The real tragedy: The death of mutual respect.
Othello wedded Desdemona out of love, based on a spiritual principle that defied the normal convention wherein women are men’s property; yet, he will decide to smother his wife in bed, turning life into death, order into chaos, procreation into destruction.
Othello, feeling his own “blackness,” preserves her “fairness” in death and possession.
The act of murder replaces the sexual union. Smothering is the most intimate form of murder.

17. The symbolism of the napkin
  The most important symbol of the play, the handkerchief means different things to different characters. To Othello, it’s a symbol of Desdemona’s chastity—that she gives to him. To Desdemona, it’s a symbol of Othello’s charms and his exotic history, the thing she falls in love with.

18. The symbolism of the napkin
There’s irony in the fact that Othello claims he used no magic or charms to win Desdemona. However, later in the play, when he suspects her of cheating, this is what he tells her:
OTHELLO. ’Tis true: there’s magic in the web28 of it.
A sibyl,29 that had number’d in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,30
In her prophetic fury31 sew’d the work;
The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy which the skillful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts Source:

19. The symbolism of the napkin
The paradox is that the strawberries, while the chaste blood of virgins on their wedding nights, also represents disease. Every symbol has two sides.
  More about the handkerchief: navigators.com/othello/Handker.html
  The historical reality of spotted handkerchiefs was that the handerchief was meant to mask the blood of tuberculosis when coughed into. The Black Death had ravaged Europe too, and consumption would remain a killer—even Poe wrote about it two hundred years later.