Critics Flashcards
post colonialism 101…
- how indigenous people adapted to their oppressors culture
- the elements of their traditional culture that survived
- moving forward to express who they were
F.R Levis
Iago’s success isn’t due to his “diabolical intellect” but due to Othello’s weakness. “not so much his diabolical intellect as Othello’s readiness to respond”
Marilyn French
argues Othello is a masculine play as it rejects female sexuality and freedom, men hold power, reflecting society
Lisa Jardine
Desdemona’s death is her being taught in lesson in what happens when you go against the patriarchy.
what is catharsis?
moment of revelation, cleaning of emotions which is a key moment in tragedy stated by Aristotle
Ruth Vanita
- argues play “forcefully combats racism” and Othello is “not at all different from any white husband”
- “Emilia breaks faith with Iago by choosing to be loyal to Desdemona”
Kenneth Tyan
Argues Othello is “the most easily jealous man” as the minute he suspects Desdemona he “wishes to think her guilty”
A.C Bradley
- Othello acts “simultaneously, if such a passion as jealousy seizes him, it will swell into a incontrollable flood”
- argues Othello is “a tragic hero, blameless victim” Iago “colonised his mind”
- Emilia “nowhere shows any sign of a bad heart”
- Iago “is defeated by the power of love”
Sean McEvoy
- argues Othello’s “contradictions within his ideology destroy him” He lives in his own ideology of the world
- “Cassio’s performance is upper class flattery”
E.A.J Honigmann
- “despite Iago’s cleverness, he has neither felt nor understood the spiritual impulses that bind ordinary human beings together- in a word love”
- Emilia’s fear for Iago is why the tragedy unfolds
- Iago “enjoys a god sense like power”
Schlegel
Argues Iago “is only accessible to selfish emotions” but there is always “some truth in his malicious observations”
Ruth Cowhig
“Othello is an alien in a white society”
Samual Coloridge
Iago’s “motiveless malignity” “next to the devil”
SN Garner
- “Desdemonas willingness to risk the censure of her father land society shows her capacity for love”
- “crucial fact of her marriage is not that she elopes but that she is a white women, weds a black man”
Anita Loomba
“women and black people exist as the other” “England was increasingly hostile to foreigners”
Thomas Elyot
“a man in his natural perfection is fierce, strong in opinion”
“the good nature of women is to be mild”
“Cassio is like a male speaker of courtly love”
Valerine Wayne
“Iago is the presence of misogynist discourse in the Renaissance”
Loomba
- “female openness is dangerous and immoral” “inherent duplicity of women”
- Othello is a victim of racial beliefs precisely as he becomes an agent to misogynistic ones
- “Venice is a place of female deviance”
Carol Thomas
- “Emilia is the foil for Desdemona and corrects Desdemona’s occasional naivety
- she steals the handkerchief due to “wifely virtues of silence, obedience and prudence”
Eileen Abrahams
“Emilia is prey to dominate ideology of wifely virtue”
Bloom
“Emilia’s loyalty to her friend is what remains whole”
Matt simpson
- “Emilia and Desdemona dies in the service of truth”
- “Emilia underscores Desdemona’s lack of knowledge”
Caryl Philips
argues “Othello’s love for Desdemona is the love for possession”
-“Othello feels constantly threatened and profoundly insecure”
Lisa Jardine
“Desdemona becomes a stereotype for female passivity”
Andy Serkis
“he is not the devil, He’s you or me being jealous and not being able to control our feelings”
Fruedian interpretation
“Iago’s pains and distrust is caused by his repressed homosexual desire for Othello”
Currie
“women become like a black outsider and must die”
C. lamb
how argues we must think what “intellectual activity prompts them to overleap these moral fences”
johnson
“Cassio is brave, benevolent and honest”
V Walker
“Cassio represents the better man”
Cassio is a “character that the audience can admire for his loyalty”
Bethell
Florentines are “noted for their fine manners”
Boonie Greer
“Othello’s jealousy, not Iago’s hatred, is the real tragedy”
Micheal D Bristol
“Othello is a test for racial and sexual persecution”
Berry
- “Othello’s identity depends on constant performance of his story, a loss of his origins”
- “Othello has no geographical or cultural anchor to his human being”
Ben olders
“When a black man in the west is portrayed as a noble, he has been neutralised”
French
Desdemona accepts her culture’s dictum that must be obedient to males
Kirsch
Othello fails to love himself and this leads to his jealousy
singh
“the production of black men as savage against white femininity is curial, prevailing internalised racism”
Robert Heilmann
when Othello rejects the handkerchief, he “rejects the magical powers of love”
John C.
“Iago becomes an Elizabethan Machiavel, who is not bothered by moral values”
virginia mason
“early modern Englands preoccupation with cuckoldry demonstrates male insecurity about a women’s sexuality”
What is the Machiavellian theory?
theory that supports any means necessary for political power
Machiavellian traits
deceptive, disruptive, manipulative
What is freudian theory?
the concept of the subconscious mind
In freudian theory what does id represent?
primitive part of mind leading to aggressive and sexual drive
In freudian theory, what does superego represent?
moral conscious
In freudian theory, what does ego represent?
realistic part of mind that mediates superego and id
Freudian theory in Othello
Othello’s behaviour is due to the conflict between his id, superego and ego.
