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
