Writing essays takes brainpower, You need ideas. Then you need to shuffle those ideas into order. Then you need to put them down on paper. Let’s practise the art of threading an essay right now!!

ACTIVITY 1

Listen to the 5 songs and think about the quoted lyrics. What is each writer suggesting about religion? What is each speaker trying to suggest about their own feelings/experiences by referencing religion? Collate your ideas in one list.

Machine Gun Kelly, ‘god save me’

“I’m a lost boy, I’m a lost boy
She’s a goth girl, she’s a pop girl
I know a one way, I know a one way
To a lost world, to a lost world
God save me, I’m ****** up”

Pale Waves, ‘Gravity’

“We go well together
But I couldn’t let her
Know she’s all I think about
You see, she loves Jesus
So that always stopped us
So I tried to pray but nothing changed”

Halsey, ‘Colors’

“I know I’ve only felt religion when I’ve lied with you”

Ekoh, Hurt Myself (a trap, fixed, inflexible, definitive)

“The churches start to feel like prison cells
‘Cause everybody’d rather judge than help”

YONAKA, ‘Seize The Power’

“Gather ’round, here’s how to get what you want
Introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss”

ACTIVITY 2

Build a 5-stage argument – a ‘thread’ – that would work as an essay framework. Consider how significant religion is to each of the 5 writers. How do the writers’ different perspectives connect in a way that allows you to come to one conclusion that is informed by all five different quotes?

Once you’ve had a chance to think, you might want to see below the YONAKA picture for my ideas. Yours might be different, but that doesn’t mean they’re not brilliant!! Originality is good!!

  1. Religion seems really significant. Just like in Machine Gun Kelly’s ‘god save me’, it offers a chance when all other hopes have dwindled. Sure, this could be looked at negatively – if you’re really at the stage of last resort, then things must be pretty desperate in your life. Regardless, the idea of religion as the provider of relief or something else positive feels pretty significant.
  2. However, when looking more closely, religion might well have actually served as the catalyst for the problems that Machine Gun Kelly needs rescuing from. Pale Waves highlight how a person’s religious belief can act as a barrier to romantic fulfilment. The Bible doesn’t approve of same-gender relationships.
  3. Further to that, Halsey underlines how a person’s religion actually only ‘shows up’ when there’s punishment to be handed out. Religion is only significant in the sense that it has such a negative impact. The fear of this punishment is part of what stands between Pale Waves and a successful relationship.
  4. In fact, the strict rules inherent to the religion in question (presumably Christianity) start to feel a trap. Religion does play a significant role, but not in any way worth celebrating. Ultimately, we worry because it feels like anyone as desperate as Machine Gun Kelly will not find the help they are looking for. If anything, he is only going to experience further punishment.
  5. Perhaps then, ultimately, we need to remember that religion isn’t as significant as our own ability to take care of our ourselves. YONAKA remind us that religion is an invented concept and so encourage us to reinvent a new religion, one that puts us in charge of our own existence.

ACTIVITY 3

Now, make a note of some quotes that reference religion in one of your course texts.

ACTIVITY 4

Go back to the list you made in response to activity 1 and highlight any of the ideas that feel true of the quotes from your course texts.

ACTIVITY 5 (or if you’re studying ‘Othello’, you might choose to skip to activity 7)

Plan an argument – a ‘thread’ – that would work as an essay framework. It does not need to have 5 stages, but will have at least 2. Consider how significant religion is in your first quotes(s). Then think about whether the last quote(s) cement that same idea or whether the significance of religion becomes more pronounced or less so.

If the argument we made based on the lyrics analysed earlier fits the text you’re writing about now, then use it. Of course, it might not fit – and so you’ll come up with a different thread 🙂

ACTIVITY 6

Explore the significance of religion in a text of your choice.

Write an essay in response to the above title.

ACTIVITY 7

Explore the significance of religion in ‘Othello’.

Let’s plan a response to the religion question in relation to ‘Othello’. Remember, though, if you’re studying for the AQA A-Level paper, your answer will need to link back to love.

But, first, let’s summarise the thread of that essay we planned earlier.

  1. Religion was presented as really significant., because it offered Machine Gun Kelly’s hope – or something else positive – when he felt completely desperate.
  2. Religion still shown to be significant, but mainly in the way it actually served as the cause of Pale Waves’ own desperation.
  3. Religion again shown as significant but, for Halsey, only in the sense that it creates a sense of fear and guilt. It’s not significant in a positive sense – in fact, we’re only reminded of its existence when we’ve challenged its boundaries in some way.
  4. The fear of religion – or at least of going against its strict ‘moral’ codes – start to feel like a trap. Ekho shows religion is significant in the way that it forces you into a certain behaviour.
  5. Religion, YONAKA remind us at the last, is not so significant. Once you’ve recognised it as a trap, once you’ve reminded yourself that it’s an invented institution, actually you realise that YOU are way more significant than any archaic construct. Create your own ‘religion’ and live according to that!

Let’s think about how the same argument might be relevant to ‘Othello’. Maybe you’ll think that, given the very different contexts of the 1600s and the 2000s, we might find our concluding paragraphs might end up reading a bit differently (after all, YONAKA – and the other songwriters – live at a time in which Christianity can be challenged and when we can live according to our own belief systems but, of course, that wasn’t so easy for Shakespeare’s characters) but let’s see how we go!!

  1. Religion offers hope
  2. Religion as catalyst for problem
  3. Religion as tyrannical
  4. Religion as a trap
  5. Religion as negotiable – not as significant as YOU!

You can see the 5 stages of our argument synthesised directly above. Which of the 5 ‘Othello’ quotes below fit with which stage?

  • QUOTE A: “…And then for her
    To win the Moor–were’t to renounce his baptism,
    All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
    His soul is so enfetter’d to her love,
    That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
    Even as her appetite shall play the god
    With his weak function…” (Iago)
  • QUOTE B: “the divine Desdemona” (Cassio)
  • QUOTE C: “Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
    I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
    Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
    In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
    Of here and every where.” (Roderigo)
  • QUOTE D: “Nay, but he prated,
    And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
    Against your honour
    That, with the little godliness I have,
    I did full hard forbear him.” (Iago)
  • QUOTE E: “Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
    I might do’t as well i’ the dark.” (Emilia)

Look underneath the picture of Pale Waves for the matches I made (although trust your own pairings as you could definitely argue the case for different matches!).

  • Religion offers hope or something else positive matches with quote D.
  • Religion (fear of religious judgement) as a catalyst for problems with quote C.
  • Religion as tyrannical matches with quote E.
  • Religion as a trap matches with quote B.
  • Religion as negotiable matches with quote A.

Now, explain your choices in full essay style. You can write pretty much the same essay – if you wish – that we planned for in relation to the songs – and the critical excerpts at the bottom of this page may help you tie your thoughts together and contextualise them!

(You may want to work without my prompts, but if you want to see my outline, then just look beneath the Halsey picture).

  1. Religion offers something positive (on the surface at least). Iago claims his commitment to God and Christian behaviour is what stops him from turning to violence. His love for God (again, seemingly) equates to love for his fellow man.
  2. Religion as catalyst for problem. Katherine Dolan tells us: “it is the father’s sacred prerogative to approve his daughter’s marriage.” If it were not for this fact – or if Desdemona had been shown more love than God? – Desdemona would never have found herself in such issues.
  3. Religion as tyrannical. Emilia only behaves as she does in matters of love because she is scared of heavenly judgement. The fear of God keeps her ‘in line’.
  4. Religion as a trap. By describing Desdemona as “divine”, Shakespeare underlines the unrealistic expectation of women. Desdemona – and women generally – receive love for fitting an idealistic stereotype, not for being who they really are.
  5. Religion as negotiable – not as significant as YOU! Iago may think he is criticising Othello, but in saying that Othello would sacrifice his Christianity if Desdemona asked him to, he is highlighting love as more powerful than religion – therefore drawing us to the conclusion that our ability to make independent choices is more significant than religion!

“Othello is a Christian, washed by the waters of baptism. There are hints that he is a convert (Iago scoffingly suggests that for the love of Desdemona Othello would “renounce his baptism” [2.3.3 10]), but this is never stated directly in the play. In any case, the Venetians would not have allowed a Muslim to lead their military forces in defence of Cyprus against an invading Islamic power like that of the Ottoman Turks. Othello (however) is known throughout the play as “the Moor” and remains a figure of blackness. Although a Christianized Moor, he retains traces of Islamic identity and serves as a focal point for anxieties about how converts to Christianity might betray their new faith and become an internal threat to Christendom. By placing the character of Othello under the scrutinizing gaze of a colour-prejudiced audience, Shakespeare’s tragedy exhibits a tension between, on the one hand, the evangelistic mandate to make Christian converts throughout the world and, on the other hand, persistent ethnocentric fears of a contamination that could allegedly result from efforts to incorporate foreigners within the domestic Christian community.” (Daniel Vitkus)

“Joseph A. Bryant, Jr., explains that “Othello in this play reflects… the office of God and… Cassio… is Shakespeare’s figure of Adam.” Desdemona is the spotless victim (Christ) that Iago (Satan, of course) causes Othello to slay in consequence of Cassio’s fall. Irving Ribner holds a similar position: “Des- demona, the audience knows, stands for mercy and forgiveness. . . . She is a reflection of Christ, who must die at the hands of man, but out of whose death may spring man’s redemption.” John Vyvyan thinks it important for understanding Othello that”… the life of Judas… might have been Shakespeare’s paradigm of tragedy….” (Robert H. West)

“At the very beginning of the play, Roderigo and Iago wake Brabantio up to alert him to a secret marriage between his daughter and the Moor Othello: “Your daughter, if you have not given her leave…hath made a gross revolt”. This, according to Christian patriarchal tradition, is strict fact: it is the father’s sacred prerogative to approve his daughter’s marriage (Corinthians 7: 36-37), and Desdemona has done wrong.” (Katherine Dolan)