Abstract
This essay explores the dramatic device at Act 4, scene 1 of Othello because it functions as a method by means of which the play is understood in a perspective. At the scene, Othello watches the conversation between Iago and Cassio in a distance where he cannot listen to them. In this situation it may be said that Othello plays a role of an on-stage audience watching a kind of playlet performed by Iago and Cassio. In the first place, this essay proves that the situation of the scene produces the effects of the play-within-a-play through a comparative analysis of the inset plays inserted in Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Next, the duality of appearance and reality is discussed as a theme revealed through the dramatic device of the scene. This theme is firstly introduced in the exposition of the play, where Iago argues that he is not what seems to be. In addition, the handkerchief plot is also mentioned because it functions as a visual instrument which emphasizes Othello’s mistaking appearance for reality. In conclusion, the essay claims that the dramatic device in Act 4, scene 1 makes it possible to find the cause of this tragedy in a larger context of the duality of appearance and reality, not the hero’s jealousy and race. As a result of this, Othello can be estimated as a play dealing with a universal matter that can be applied to all human beings.
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