A3 Flashcards
❤️❌🫨
“and when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again.”
AO1 - Jealousy / Deception / Othello
AO2 - Foreshadowing, entrance to catastrophe
AO3 - Aristotle tragic catastrophe
🟢👁️👹
“It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.”
AO1 - Jealousy
AO2 - Foreshadowing, oppressive imagery, jealousy personified = motif of monster
AO3 - Othello’s hamartia, consumption may allude to gluttony (seven deadly sins)
🤓
“I know our country disposition well”
AO1 - Iago x Othello / Prejudice
AO2 - Assertive tone reassures Othello and pressures him to conform to societal ideals of women
AO3 - Jacobean society perceived Italian women to be promiscuous as many plays set in Italy included courtesans and adulteresses
AO5 - Iago’s machinations are effective because Othello is predisposed to believing Iago’s pronouncements (Loomba)
🤫💃
“Their best conscience / Is not leave’t undone, but keep’t unknown”
AO1 - Deception / Reputation / Iago x Othello / Femininity
AO2 - Irony as “best conscience” degrading, suggests religion and devilish behaviour
AO3 - Society was heavily patriarchal, therefore women were placed on a binary opposition whereby they were either sexually corrupt, or perfection; location of Venice
❌👥
“Of her own clime, complexion, and degree”
AO1 - Prejudice / Othello (insecurity)
AO2 - Asyndetic listing creates a sense of overwhelm and claustrophobia, evoking social and sexual insecurity in Othello
AO3 - Slaves from Spanish ships freed onto English land, causing prejudicial fears against “the other”, interracial marriage deemed unnatural, distorting GCoB
🦅😗
“Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, / I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind”
AO1 - Femininity / Marriage
AO2 - Animal imagery: disobedient wife, needed to be restrained
AO3 - Shakespeare uses hawk imagery to portray the ‘taming’ of the wife; hawk used to hunt prey suggests wives are solely used as a function to satisfy their male counterparts
😿
“I am black, / … have not those soft parts of conversation / … or for I am declined / Into the vale of years”
AO1 - Prejudice / Othello / Reputation
AO2 - Diction ‘declined’ suggests a reduction in Othello’s confidence, shift in tone at the peak of the play (Act 3): showing signs of doubt and insecurity, contrasting to confident Othello in Act 1
AO3 - Aristotle tragedy
🤧❤️
“This was her first remembrance from the Moor.”
AO1 - Marriage / Love / Appearance vs Reality / Jealousy
AO2 - Motif of the handkerchief: seen as a token of love and marriage, later manipulated to become a symbol of destruction, a medium for Iago’s machinations, as well as a symbol of Othello’s social insecurity
AO3 - Cuckoldry, and wives as an extension of men’s reputation
🍽️❤️
“you are eaten up with passion.”
AO1 - Jealousy / Marriage
AO2 - Recurring imagery of consumption/monster, past tense indicating Othello’s inevitable downfall
AO3 - Aristotle’s tragedy, gluttony
🌊🛳️
“Pontic Sea, / … compulsive course”
AO1 - Love / Marriage
AO2 - Motif of sea: weathering storms; contrasts to earlier on in the play, connoting a definitive end to Desdemona and Othello’s marriage
AO3 - Sea/Ships used frequently in Jacobean literature to portray relationships and love
👨❤️👨🌅
“He kneels” x2
”[They rise.]”
AO1 - Othello x Iago / Marriage / Homosocial relationships
AO2 - Imagery of Othello lowering his body shows a degradation in status and character
- Albeit of ‘higher’ status, the act of kneeling places Othello at Iago’s mercy as well as of a lower social position in the hierarchy
- Imagery of Iago’s superiority and role as a puppeteer then kneeling to Othello’s level, symbolises his duplicity and masking of true intentions
- Shift in Othello’s devotion sheds light on his desperation to conform/assimilate into Venetian society
- Them rising together suggests a declaration of loyalty, alluding to marriage and creating a sense of equality between Othello and Iago
AO3 - Iago as a Machiavellian villain
🧙♀️
“She was a charmer”
AO1 - Prejudice / Appearance vs Reality
AO2 - Motif of the handkerchief: Othello aligning with his ‘otherness’ reinforces the notion that it is a token of Othello’s vulnerability with his background
AO3 - Reinforces Jacobean cultural stereotypes and religious beliefs
