Desdemona Quotes Flashcards
Cassio quotes which show Desdemona to be a paragon of goodness
“th’essential vesture of creation;” - part of God’s natural order
“she is indeed perfection”
Iago’s Act 2 scene One soliloquy which presents Desdemona as good
“as fruitful/As the free elements”
Quotes when Desdemona dies
“O banish me, my lord, but kill me not!…Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!…But half an hour!…But while I say one prayer!”
Quotes to show Desdemona being a model wife:
“Then heaven/Have mercy on me!”
- she must submit to her husband
Quotes to show Othello’s inner conflict when about to kill Desdemona:
“Yet I’ll not shed her blood/ Nor scar that whiter skin…”
Versus
“She must die, else she’ll betray more men”
“Put out the light and then put out the light”
Quote to show Desdemona’s true love to Othello
‘my noble Moor is true of mind, and made of no such baseness as jealous creatures are.’ (Act 3, Scene 4)
What Desdemona’s father describes her as versus what she is actually like.
Her father describes her as pure, meek and subservient, ‘a maiden never bold’ (Act 1, Scene 3), yet when confronted by him she promptly defends her choices in a public forum, and says she will ‘trumpet them to the world’ (Act 1, Scene 3) and willingly follows Othello to Cyprus.
independence:
she chooses the man she wants to marry, she speaks to the Duke and argues her case “I love the Moor to live with him”
Quote in an aside reveals that she is capable of deception.
she is actually not merry but is merely presenting a contrived public face, ‘I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise’ (Act 2, Scene 1).
Quotes to show she is can stand up for herself
She shows great strength in her perseverance to defend Cassio and when her husband strikes her in public she responds abruptly in defence, ‘I have not deserved this.’ (Act 4, Scene 1)
Quote to show Desdemona will defend Othello’s nature to the very end
. Even in her last breath she maintains integrity, defending her husband’s honour and refusing to incriminate him – ‘Farewell. Commend me to my kind lord’ (Act 5, Scene 2).
