Deception and honesty — Eduqas GCSE English Literature C720
Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720
Deception and honesty
Themes
What you need to know
How Shakespeare explores deception and honesty: Iago's lies behind his reputation for honesty, appearance and reality, and the false proof that Othello demands and is given across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'The Moor is of a free and open nature, / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so', 'I must show out a flag and sign of love, / Which is indeed but sign', 'When devils will the blackest sins put on, / They do suggest at first with heavenly shows', 'I am not merry; but I do beguile / The thing I am, by seeming otherwise', 'Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving', 'I know, Iago, / Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter', 'My lord, you know I love you', 'Men should be what they seem; / Or those that be not, would they might seem none!', 'This fellow's of exceeding honesty', 'I think my wife be honest and think she is not', 'She did deceive her father, marrying you', 'Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible'.
Appearance and reality: Iago's reputation for honesty, the false proof of the handkerchief and the overheard talk, Desdemona's innocence taken for guilt, and the truth told too late.
Context that helps a reading: the Vice and the scheming stage villain who deceive while seeming friends, and honest as a word that changes meaning in the play.
Eduqas's Shakespeare questions don't mark context: the extract question (15 marks) and the whole-play essay (20 marks, plus 5 for spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence structures) both mark response and analysis of language, form and structure (AO1 and AO2). Use context only in a phrase that supports an interpretation, and say which question each worked paragraph practises.
