Emilia Quotes Flashcards
‘Enter Emilia… But he protests he loves you and need no other suitor’ - Stage direction/ Emilia in Act 3 Scene 1
Iago commands his wife, she only enters at his bidding. She is involved in his plan without knowing it, making her the puppet and him the puppeteer. She is deceptive towards Cassio, lying about Othello’s feelings towards him in order to please her husband.
‘I am glad I have found this napkin… give’t Iago: what he will do with it heaven knows, not I - I nothing, but to please his fantasy’ - Emilia in Act 3 Scene 3
Emilia is not knowingly complicit in Iago’s plans however she understands her husband’s nature and how important the handkerchief is and yet she still gives it to him as she is driven by a desperation to please Iago - emphasising her role as a tragic victim.
‘To have a foolish wife’ - Iago in Act 3 Scene 3
Emilia is in an emotionally and verbally abusive marriage with Iago who is deeply misogynistic, cruel and devoid of any compassion or warmth towards her. She represents the women trapped in a patriarchal society who have to submit to their cold and unloving husbands.
‘He snatches it’ - Stage direction in Act 3 Scene 3
Iago does not reward or show any gratitude towards Emilia for giving him the handkerchief. The reason she gave it to him was to please him and yet he still shows her no kindness.
‘Is he not jealous… is not this man jealous?’ - Emilia in Act 3 Scene 4
Emilia is a foil to Desdemona. Where Desdemona is foolish, gullible and naive, Emilia is experienced and hardened from her upbringing lower down in society as well as by her awful marriage to Iago. She is trying to make Desdemona aware of Othello’s worrying behaviour.
‘They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; they eat us hungerly, and when they are full they belch us’ - Emilia in Act 3 Scene 4
Emilia creates a divide between the two sexes - using ‘they’ and ‘us’. She also makes it clear that men use women purely for their sexual appetites and then discard them. Emilia has worldly knowledge from her disastrous marriage to Iago and the fact that she is not sheltered like upper class women.
