Iago

Question 1

give quotes for iago’s key characteristic as the disgruntled employee

Answer 1

• I know my price, I am worth no worse a place (1,1)
• [Cassio] must be his lieutenant be,/ And I, God bless the mark, his Moorship’s ancient (1,1) - sarcastic and mocking

Question 2

give a quote of Iago’s key characteristic of being the jilted husband

Answer 2

• accuses both Othello (1,3) and Cassio (2,1) of sleeping with his wife
• Calls Emilia a ‘villainous whore’ (5,2)
• Implies Emilia nags him, telling Cassio ‘Would she give you as much of her lips/ As of her tongue she oft bestows on me/ You would have enough’ (2,1)
• calls Emilia a ‘foolish wife’ and ‘good wench’ (3,3)

Question 3

give quotes of Iago’s key characteristics of being the serpent

Answer 3

• Promises Roderigo ‘Thou shalt enjoy [Desdemona]’ (1,3) while also belittling and intimidating him ‘You know I love you’ (3,3)

Question 4

key characteristic - The entrepreneur

Answer 4

• ‘I follow [Othello] to serve my turn upon him’ (1,1)
• ‘Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,/ But seeming so for my peculiar end’ (1,1)

Question 5

key characteristic - the undicided

Answer 5

• he says Othello has chosen ‘a great arithmetician,/ One Michael Cassio’ (1,1)
• also has a rumour that Othello has ‘done [his] office’ (1,3), his ‘love’ for Desdemona (2,1) and his ‘fear [that] Cassio [is] with [his] night-cap (2,1)

Question 6

key characteristic - the Bigot

Answer 6

• calls Othello ‘lusty Moor’ (2,1)
• paints all women as ‘Villainous whores’ (5,2)
• Tells Brabantio ‘You have lost half your soul’ and ‘now, an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe’ (1,1)

Question 7

key characteristic - the preacher

Answer 7

• tells Roderigo ‘Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners’
• ‘Not out of absolute lust-though peradventure/ I stand for as great a sin’ (2,1)

Question 8

key characteristic - the cynic

Answer 8

• ‘In following him I follow but myself’ (1,3)
• ‘For necessity of present life,/ I must show out a flag and sign of love’ (1,3)

Question 9

key characteristic - the con man

Answer 9

• admits to Roderigo ‘For when my outward action doth demonstrate/ The native act and figure of my heart’ (1,1)
• ‘I am not what I am’ (1,1)

Question 10

relatiohship - Emilia

Answer 10

• she goes against her instinct to ‘obey’ him (5,2)

Question 11

relationship - Desdemona

Answer 11

• wants to get back at Othello ‘wife for wife’ (2,1)

Question 12

key theme - jealousy and cuckoldry

Answer 12

• ‘he has done my office’ (1,3)
• ‘I fear Cassio with my night-cap too’ (2,1)
• ‘The lusty Moor/ Hath leaped into [his] seat’ (2,1)
• ‘Till I am evened with him, wife for wife’ (2,1)
• ‘And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,/ All guiltless, meet reproach’ (5,1)

Question 13

key theme - prejudice and race

Answer 13

• ‘An old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe’ (1,1)
• ‘Lascivious Moor’ (1,1)
• ‘Lusty Moor’ (2,1)
• Describes Othello and Desdemona’s relationship as one between ‘an erring barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian’ (1,3)
• experiences revulsion at Desdemona for not loving ‘Of her own clime’ (3,3)
• Iago seeks to set the course of ‘nature; right
• wants to drive Othello to ‘savage madness’ (4,1) of the archetypal ‘barbarian’
• ‘I told him what I thought, and told no more/ Than what he found himself was apt and true’ (5,2)
• ‘Demand me nothing; what you know, you know’ (5,2)