Critical Analysis & Theatre Productions AO5 Flashcards

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1
Q

What is significant about the National Theatre 2022 production of Othello within A3S3?

A

In A3S3, Desdemona is trying to persuade Othello to reinstate Cassio’s position. In this production, Othello is boxing and Desdemona steps in between the punching bag and Othello.
-This signals she is putting herself in masculine danger
-She is so devout to Othello she is willing to sacrifice herself to preserve their love
D: ‘I have no judgement in an honest face.’ (about Cassio)
O: ‘Not now, sweet Desdemon, some other time’

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2
Q

What is significant about the 2022 National Theatre production in A4S1?

A
  • When Othello hits D he whistles her to come back
  • Reflects a performative masculinity and how D has fallen so he treats her like an animal
  • public act- makes it more severe as this affects O’s reputation
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3
Q

What is significant about Desdemona sleeping before Othello kills her?

A

At this moment, O sees Desdemona in her perfect state, which is silent. Therefore, it can be read that Othello is play about silencing women’s voices, particularly as he ‘smothers her’

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4
Q

How does The National Theatre 2022 production demonstrate a continuation of misogyny in Jacobean society?

A
  • Emilia has a black eye
  • In the line ‘and when they strike us’ she touches her cheek, symbolising the hopelessness of women against the patriarchy and the cruel oppression of women based on mistrust and control
  • There are posters of past Othello productions on the wall suggesting a continued reiteration and history of feminine abuse and ignorance of women
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5
Q

What happens at the beginning and end of the National Theatre 2022 production?

A
  • The play starts and ends with someone sweeping up blood
  • This cyclical structure shows the cyclical nature of violence
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6
Q

How does Shakespeare subvert the strereotype of the Moor?

A
  • Audiences at the time would expect Othello as the Moor to be at the heart of the conflict.
  • However, by having Iago as the malignant villain, Shakespeare subverts this stereotype as even though Othello is partially to blame, it is Iago that causes the conflict and the tragedy
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7
Q

What is Thomas Rhymer’s (1693) opinion of Othello

A

NEGATIVE
* Plot was untrue to life due to unrealistic behaviour of soldiers
* No satisfactory moral for the audience
* A ‘warning to good housewives to look to their linen’
* ‘A noble Venetian lady is to be murdered by our poet- in sober sadness purely for being a fool’

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8
Q

What is Dr Johnson’s (1765) opinion of Othello?

A

POSITIVE
* True to life
* Othello is ‘ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution and obdurate (stubborn) in his revenge
* Play’s moral is to ‘not make an unequal match’

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9
Q

What is Coleridge’s (early 1800s) opinion of Othello?

A
  • Iago is bad because he is bad - he has ‘motiveless malignity’
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10
Q

What is Swinburne’s opinion of Othello?

A
  • Othello is the ‘noblest man of man’s making’
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11
Q

What is A.C Bradley’s (1904) opinion of Othello?

A

OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE
* Othello is blameless- he is a man of intense feeling but self controlled
* The newness of Othello’s marriage makes his jealousy credible
* Othello never falls completely and we feel ‘admiration and love’ for the hero because we exult in the power of ‘love and man’s unconquerable mind’
* Love is the central idea in Othello

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12
Q

What is T.S Eliot’s (1927) opinion of Othello?

A
  • In Othello’s last speech, he is guilty of trying to cheer himself up to evade reality –> ‘a terrible exposure of human weakness’
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13
Q

What is F.R Leavis’s (1952) opinion of Othello?

A
  • Iago’s role is ‘subordinate and merely ancillary (supporting)’
  • Othello has a propensity to jealousy and possesses a weak character, which is sorely tested by marriage’
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14
Q

What is Marilyn French’s (1982) opinion of Othello?

A

FEMINIST
* Even though Desdemona chooses her own husband, she ‘accepts her culture’s diction that she must be obedient to males’
* D is ‘self-denying in the extreme’ when she dies
* Othello, Emilia, Cassio and Roderigo subscribe to feminine values which Iago destroys, whose ‘ordinary wisdom’ of the male world comes to dominate

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15
Q

What is Lisa Jardine’s (1983) opinion of Othello?

A

FEMINIST
* Stage world of Jacobean drama is wholly masculine
* Desdemona is too knowing, too independent
* ‘The shadow of sexual frailty hovers over;
* She is punished for her waywardness
* ‘Exemplary passivity in adversity’

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16
Q

What is Leonard Tennenhouse’s (1986) view of Othello?

A

FEMINIST
* Women are victims of excessive punishment even if they are innocent;
* Women are cast as monsters because of their sexuality
* D’s smothering is an example of silencing female political voice

17
Q

What is Ania Loomba’s (1987)’s opinion of Othello?

A

POST-COLONIAL
* Othello is about the complex relationship between a black man, a white woman and the state
* Women and black people exist as ‘the other’
* Othello has a split consciousness-> ‘he becomes simultaneously the keeper of the state and its opponent’

18
Q

Elise Walter
‘Emilia and Desdemona struggle to…

A

Emilia and Desdemona struggle to navigate and survive in a violent, male-dominated world

19
Q

Elise Walter
‘Emilia and Desdemona are fundamentally…

A

Emilia and Desdemona are fundamentally ‘unlike:’ maidservant and gentlewoman, older and younger, sexually experienced and naive’

20
Q

Elise Walter
Desdemona and Emilia are ‘protectors from _____, defenders of _____, and the only speakers of ____

A

‘Protectors from slander, defenders of honour, and the only speakers of truth’

21
Q

What is significant about Ola Ince’s production of Othello?

A
  • Set within Scotland Yard- takes contemporary issues of racism and misogyny into Othello
  • Othello’s conscious is portrayed by a second actor who expresses himself mostly through movement
22
Q

Veronika Walker on Cassio and Othello
‘Both men serve as loyal soldiers of the…
Cassio seems to represent…
Othello represets…

A

“Both men serve as loyal soldiers of the Venetian crown, but Cassio seems to represent… the suave, debonair, and eye-catching gallantry that attracts lady folk to military men, while Othello represents the wisdom, experience, and backbone”

23
Q

Ruth Vanita on male solidarity
“Violence on a male produces…

A

“Violence on a male produces an immediate counterreaction”

24
Q

Kiernan Ryan on jealousy
‘sexual jelaousy is shown to be…

A

“sexual jealousy is shown to be the rule in Venice rather than the exceptional emotional disorder in Othello”

25
Q

Catherine Bates
‘Love sponsors the forces of…

A

“Love sponsors the forces of life, creating human families and social groups in the teeth of man’s instinct for destruction”

26
Q

Kiernan Ryan on the handkerchief
it ‘draws an implicit parallel between…

A

“draws an implicit parallel between Bianca and the respectable wives Desdemona and Emilia, revealing the true nature of the married woman’s role by erasing the distinction between them”