Emilia Flashcards
“I have nothing but to please his fantasy”
Moral conflict dilemma
Immediate impulse is to satisfy husband when she picks up the handkerchief over he duty to Desdemona
“Do not you chide I have a thing for you”
Seeks to exchange a personal object for material safety and that marriage operates based on logic of trade rather than love
Emilia must act against her values and accept that he role in the marriage is to execute his orders and comply with his whims
“Who would not make a husband a cuckhold or make him a monarch”
Cheating is not bad if it mutually benefits both partners
“The ills we do, their ills instruct us so”
If a wife lapses in her marital duties then the husband is also to blame
“Think”(act 4 scene 3)
Can only imagine or fantasise the fancy to change the power dynamics
“Have”(act 4 scene 3)
More passive verbs used for women so there’s no outward orientated impact with having a trait
“Slack” “strike” “scant”
Vivid active verbs for men
“Let them use us well”
Use=treat
Power of authority to men=determine the terms of treatment within marriage
“I’ll kill myself for grief”
Underlying tone of Guilt over not doing more
“Villainy, villainy,villainy!I think upon’t, I think
O villainy! I thought so then”
Most obvious level this is Lagos deceit and Othello cruelty
On a deeper level it is Emilia’s complicity and role in Desdemona death
“So speaking as I think alas, I die”
Syntactic parallelism of “I think” and “I die”
Draws an implied causality between thinking and dying
IE.It is her endless rumination and thus avoidance of action that has finally led to her death.
