act 2 Flashcards
maid that paragons description
Act 2 scene 1
- cassio says desdemona is so beautiful she can’t be described
players in your housewivery
Act 2 scene 1
- iago describes his sexist thoughts
- use of derogatory names such as “housewives” is fairly paradoxical
a web as this will ensnare as great as fly as Cassio
Act 2 scene 1
- iago admits to having a web in which he is going to entangle his victims and trap them
- shakespeare uses spider imagery
o my fair warrior!
Act 2 scene 1
- othello greets desdemona after arriving safely at cyprus
if it were now to die/twere now to be most happy
Act 2 Scene 1
- othello arrives at cyrprus
- he puts love on a very high pedastal
- what seems initially like positive love but implies a destructive nature
all which the moor is defective in
Act 2 Scene 1
- iago pries on othello’s insecurities
diet my revenge / wife for wife
Act 2 scene 1
- iago’s soliloquy
- iago explains his intentions behind his maliciousness to the audience
- he believed othello has slept with his wifie
- reference to the bible “eye for an eye” (an allusion)
a jealousy so strong judgement cannot cure
Act 2 scene 1
- iago says this about othello, he knows from his own personal experience that jealousy will cause you to go insane (from believing his wife slept with Cassio and Othello)
my blood begins my safer guide to rule
Act 2 scene 3
- othello has the potential to be taken over by anger
reputation! x3 immortal part of myself, what remains is bestial
Act 2 scene 3
- cassio loses his job
- his reputation is ever-lasting
- repetition / rule of 3
- shows the importance that reputation holds in the centre of the tragedy
reputation is an idle and most false imposition
Act 2 scene 3
- iago, referring to othello
- also ironic as we know one of his motivations from the start is not having a good name (leiutenant)
divinity of hell
Act 2 scene 3
- demonstrates where iago’s worship lies
- phrase is an oxymoron, suggesting he sees the divine in the work of the devil
- demonstrates self-awareness of the evil he is perpetrating
Pour this pestilence in his ear
Act 2 scene 3
- iago will poisen othello’s thoughts
- poisen imagery illustrates the negative effects words have on ones mind as it destorys rational thought resulting in death and destruction
virtue into pitch
Act 2 scene 3
- sticky nature of pitch suggests iago will use desdemonas goodness to lead her into a trap
- extended metaphore of trapped imagery
- sentence structure foreshadows the destruction of Desdemona’s reputation as it transitions from ‘virtue’ to ‘pitch’ - black tar like substance with sinister connotations
out of her goodness make the net to enmesh them all
Act 2 scene 3
- recurring imagery of entrapping them in his web
- extended metaphore
- trap for his prey
- again using Desdemona’s virtues to manipulate reality
tis my breeding
Act 2 scene 1
- cassio says it is his upbringing that makes him curtious
- Iago uses his virtue to manipulate reality
warlike moor Othello
Act 2 scene 1
- othello is described
- associated with his abilities as a soldier
- never described as a good husband to Desdemona
were’t to renounce his baptism
Act 2, scene 3
- in iago’s soliloquy
- iago says that othello would renounce his baptism and give up his christianity for Desdemona which is a bold claim considering Othello’s christianity is an integral part of him
- links to when he tells Desdemona the origins of the handkerchief (magic) which goes against their christian beliefs but Desdemona is still open to it because she loves Othello so much
When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows As I do now
Act 2, Scene 3
- iago’s soliloquy
- he is deceiving them all as they belief he is “honest” in nature
Even to madness,
Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used
Act 2, scene 1 (soliloquy)
- foreshadows Othello’s descent into madness, loss of rationality
- evil plans never reveal themselves until used
Warlike isle
Act 2, Scene 3
- tragedy is ordered as a story of chaos
- the settings of venice + cyprus set up the chaos
- cyprus is less civilised and less ordered
- venice represents civilisation
- when othello arrives in cyprus he says ‘when i love thee not chaos is come again’
- what happened in cyprus would never happen in the civilised city of venice
What’s he, then, that says I play the vil-lain
Act 2, scene 3
- no one has ever called iago a villain
- talking to the audience who clearly perceive him as a tragic villain
- interplay
- element of self-awareness of the evil he is perpetrating
- this soliloquy shows the entertainment thay iago’s character brings to the tragedy
