Roderigo & Brabantio
English Lit: AQA A Level Othello, topic 7.2.1
Roderigo
Roderigo is a fool and a dupe.
Roderigo
- Roderigo is paying Iago money to give him information about Desdemona, who he wishes to marry.
- Brabantio has already rejected him as a suitor but this does not stop his pursuit of her.
Iago
- Roderigo is often melancholic and full of self-pity, lamenting his own situation.
- However, there is no room for his development and so he is killed.
- Iago has played him for most of the play.
- It is only when he faces mortality that he realises Iago’s true nature.
Love and tragedy
- Roderigo believes that love can be bought and paid for, but he comes to understand that it cannot be.
- His function in the tragic plot is to be duped by Iago, and this contributes to his death.
Brabantio
A ‘reverend signor’ Brabantio is an elderly man whose daughter is Desdemona.
Brabantio
- Brabantio is a respected figure in Venetian society. He is distraught when he learns that Desdemona has married a Moor.
- He views him as having stolen her (so she is his property) and that he has achieved this through witchcraft.
Racism
- Brabantio offers much of the racist abuse in the play.
- He orders Othello to appear before the Duke of Venice to justify himself in a kind of trial.
- He is very forthright and opinionated.
Mirrored emotions
- Brabantio's slide into despair is matched by Othello’s happiness at being married to Desdemona.
- We learn of his death later in the play.
Love
- Brabantio is an important character in terms of restricting love and not permitting marriage.
Tragedy
- The play implies that is dissatisfaction with his daughter’s choice of husband throws him into such despair that he dies.
- Interestingly, retrospectively the audience may see that his concerns over Desdemona and Othello’s pairing were right: he foresaw that tragedy and chaos might result from their union.
Test yourself on Roderigo & Brabantio
What does Roderigo finally realise at the end of the play?
Features of Brabantio's character