Othello Speech

the 2010 Macquarie Dictionary, manipulation is said to mean: 1.To shape skillfully with the use of the hands or 2. Exerting shrewd or devious influence especially for one's own advantage.   Manipulation is a key aspect in Shakespeare’s play Othello, playing a heavy part in Iago’s plans, and I think you know which definition I mean. In Othello’s final speech, Act 5 Scene 2 starting at line 354, he says:   Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service and they know’t:   No more of that. I pray you in your letters when you shall these unlucky deeds relate speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice.

Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal gum. Set you down this, and say, besides that in Aleppo once where a malignant and a turbaned Turk beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote him, thus.”   It is this moment, when Othello stabs himself and soon dies.

During these last words, Othello reflects on his life, his past years spent in the Venetian army as an honored soldier and the most recent events in his life, telling the audience how he was manipulated and poisoned into becoming a murderer. Othello’s initial plea to Lodovico, who was there at the time of this speech, was to record his life and story faithfully, “I pray you in your letters when you shall these unlucky deeds relate speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice” He then goes on to tell how he was deceived and tricked and how he would like to be remembered.

“Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well, of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, perplexed in the...