`Othello` by Shakespeare: Discuss the role of the settings in the play. What does Venice represent? What does Cyprus represent? Prove your thesis with analysis of the things that happen in each place. What was the feeling about Europe in general as op

Othello by Shakespeare : Discuss the role of the settings in the play What does Venice represent ? What does Cyprus represent ? Prove your thesis with analysis of the things that happen in each place

Othello deals with a number of different subjects , including love jealousy , hatred , the nature of evil and also what it means to be foreign ' within a society . The play starts in Venice and then moves to Cyprus . The move from one place to another represents a removal of the social constrictions that are placed upon characters such as Othello

, as well as placing the drama in a place in which all the main characters are in fact `alien . This analysis will argue that Shakespeare has deliberately set the world of Cyprus in contrast to that of Venice in to show the effect of `place ' upon people

The opening of Othello is set at night in Venice , and the evil antagonist of the play , Iago , immediately sets the world of Venice against that of the general Othello . He states that three great ones of the city , In personal suit to make me his lieutenant . but he , as loving his own pride and purposes , Evades them . (I .1 . Othello has supposedly set his own pride ' and purposes ' against the city . Immediately Othello is an other within the dominant society of Venice . When Othello first appears however , he exhibits a nobility and calm that shows how he has managed to rise to the top of the army in a society that is clearly racist . Roderigo has called him thick lips Iago a `Barbary horse ' and Brabantio is utterly disconsolate that Othello has married his daughter

As Brabantio 's soldiers attempt to arrest Othello , he pours his eloquence onto the anger surrounding him , full of the self confidence that he could probably kill all of Brabantio 's soldiers within a few seconds

Keep up your bright swords , for the dew will rust them

Good signior , you shall more command with years

Than with weapons (I .2

The rest of the Act shows two main things . First , how much Venice needs Othello as its General and second , how little Othello actually seems to know about the city and its ways beyond his professional skill as a soldier . Once Othello proves , at least to the eyes of the Duke , that he has not bewitched Desdemona , but rather that she has fallen in love with him , the leader states , be as you shall privately determine , Either for her stay of going . the affair cries haste , And speed must answer 't : you must hence tonight (I .3 . The State , in the form of the Duke , cares little for domestic squabbles , even if they include a man as powerful as Brabantio . Othello is the general they need , and so he goes

The rest of the play is set away from Venice in Cyprus . Brilliantly Shakespeare takes away the need for a war through having the Turkish fleet sunk in a storm . This leaves Othello...