Critics Quotes Flashcards
Vanita:
‘the play forcefully combats racism by its presentation of Othello as not all different from any white husband’
French:
Desdemona “accepts her cultures dictum that she must be obedient to males”
Jardine: “it does not matter that a woman is called…
‘whore’ it matters when and where she is”
Vanita (1994): Desdemona “is killed
not only by Othello and Iago but by all those who see her humiliated and beaten in public, and fail to intervene”
Block: honest
“‘honest’ Iago will poison the atmosphere of the play not by his actions but by what he’ll say”
Cohen: the remainder of the play…
concentrates on domestic concerns
Block: lago’s plan takes place as we watch him; and as he…
watches us watching him, we become complicit in his devilry.
Block: Shakespeare frequently uses prose when he’s capturing the way…
soldiers talk to each other, who tend to hide their true feelings behind a mask of witty, worldly toughness
Phillips: Othello is ‘a man of…
action not a thinker’
Traub: Othello is vulnerable because…
he internalises Iagos negative view of black men which undermines his sense of self.
Phillips: Othello’s line “she had eyes and chose me” revels his
‘gross insecurity’
Phillips: the ‘fatal mistake’ Othello makes is…
‘to question his own judgement’
