Othello Flashcards
What are the 8 key themes of Othello?
- Incompatibility of Military Heroism and Love
- Nature of things/ Order in Society
- Reputation
- Jealousy
- Trust and Betrayal
- Obsession
- Otherness
- Racism/Sexism
Incompatibility of Miltary Heroism and Love
- Context
Elizabethan era, women had to be “assisted in matters that are not of ladies’ capacity”.
Desdemona being taking to Cyprus = outrageous, as it was a male-dominated + barbaric place
Othello mixing his love life + military needs together = disruption of ‘Harmony of Spheres’
Incompatibility of Miltary Heroism and Love
- Quotes [4]
“My dear Othello”
“My fair warrior”
“She wish’d heaven had made her such a man.”
“O, you are well tun’d now! / But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music, / As honest as I am.”
Incompatibility of Miltary Heroism and Love
- Critics
“It is the love of possession, she’s a prize of war”
Caryl Phillips
Reputation
- Quotes [5]
“I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial!”
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition oft got without merit and lost without deserving”
“Cassio I love thee, But never more be officer of mine”
“plague him with flies”
“Valiant Moor”
Reputation
- Context
In Venice- Iago tries to blight Othello’s image to Brabantio = unsuccessful due to civilization
In Cyprus- Othello is no longer “valiant Moor”
Nature of things/Order
- Quotes [3]
“Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them”
“warlike isle”
“She lov’d me for the dangers I had passed”
Nature of things/Order
- Critics
“He is the black sheep… turning everyone else black rather than allowing them to feel superior in their whiteness” Marian Cox
Jealousy
- Quotes [5]
"whore" "strumpet" "lust stain'd sheets" "green-eyed monster" "I'll chop her into messes!"
Jealousy
- Critics
“Iago is the ‘stage manager’ controlling his victims effortlessly” Warren
Trust and betrayal
- Quotes [6]
"honest Iago" "I am not what I am" "I follow him to serve my turn upon him" "O, you are well tun'd now!" "My lord, you know I love you" "I hate the Moor"
Trust and betrayal
- Critics
“He publishes doubt and calls it knowledge”
Blake
Obsession
- Quotes [3]
“lust stain’d sheets”
“I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial”
“Think on thy sins”
Obsession
- Critics
Othello’s obsession with Desdemona -> eruption of jealousy
Iago exploits this to question Desdemona’s infidelity
Otherness
- Quotes [6]
"Haply, for I am black" "barbary horse" "an old black ram" "Moorship's ancient" "Your son in law is more fair than black" "valiant Moor"
Otherness
- Context
Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare play:
Aaron said his black face = representative of his dark, evil soul.
- Few black people in England in the late 16thC -> feelings of distrust and fascination
- Bible knowledge, black people descended from ‘Ham’, punished for sexual excess by blackness -> Promiscuous
Otherness
- Critics
“Othello is a man of mystery, exoticism…”
A C Bradley
Sexism
- Quotes [4]
“Tis proper I obey you, but not now”
“She wish’d heaven had made her such a man”
“My dear Othello”
“She lov’d me for the dangers I had passed”
Sexism
- Context
“To promote a woman to rule is unnatural and insulting to God” - John Knox, 1558
The jacobean audience, expect men to have control over women
Sexism
- Critics
“In spite of her masculine assertiveness in choosing her own husband, Desdemona accepts her culture’s dictum that she must be obedient to males and is self-denying to the extreme when she does.”
Marilyn French
John Mcrae
Othello is “human”, so having no flaws in a humanist world is impossible.
Handkerchief
Symbolic of Desdemona’s chastity & wedding sheets
Define hubris
Excessive pride
Define anagnorisis
When a character realises an error/mistake
Define hamartia
Tragic flaw a character has
Define catharsis
Purging of emotion for audience members through suffering of characters
Define peripeteia
The moment in which something goes wrong
Define epiphany
Feeling of sudden realisation
Define malcontent
Dissatisfied or rebellious
Define machiavellian
Do what they need to accomplish goals
What does Iago establish a sense of with Cassio and Roderigo?
A sense of fraternal familiarity
What does Iago do throughout Act 1?
Begin causing vexation - trying to worry Othello
What is important about Othello’s portrayal in Act 1?
His portrayal - strong, capable and powerful is the antithesis of Iago’s description, which emphasises his fall into tragedy through Iago’s malign influence.
What is Brabantio’s speech directed to Othello in Act 1 called?
A denunciation speech - public condemnation of Othello’s actions
How does Othello believe all is subsumed in the power of love?
Othello’s love for Desdemona, and his belief in the power of love itself, has been percieved by critics to be one of the reasons for his downfall later
Iago as a humanist [2]
We are responsible for our own lives, recognises the importance of willpower
Iago believes self-awareness -> you control your destiny -> machiavellian
What does Iago believe love is?
A delusion: “a lust of the blood and a permission of the will”
What is Iago? [4]
- Machiavellian
- Malcontent
- Opportunist
- Humanist
