Othello act 5 Flashcards
C
A S A N
“Cyprus A street at night” - Stage directions (S1)
- cyclical: 1) secrecy and deception like the start 2) final scene before Iago’s schemes come to light - last moment in darkness 3) sense of inevitability 4) mirrors opening to show how drastically everything has changed - same setting provides neutral backdrop to re-evaluate their altered personalities and fortunes
I W C I T L
“Iago wounds Cassio in the leg” - Stage directions (S1)
- intended to kill him: Iago has been puppet-master this whole time and the first time he actively gets involved in something it goes wrong 1) could undermine his prowess as a villain 2) subtle signal that everything is beginning to unravel
T V O C: I K H W
“The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.” - Othello (S1)
- “voice of Cassio”: he hears Cassio in pain and does not rush to his aid - the chaos of the scene echoes Cassio’s fight scene in Act 2 in which Othello rushes down - this time he does nothing = how far he and his opinion of him have fallen
- “Iago keeps his word” 1) still thinks Iago is so honest 2) his signal to kill Desy - audience knows her death is imminent 3) ironically but also fittingly, it is a misunderstanding that actively triggers Desy’s murder (thinks Cassio’s dead)
O D I! O I D!
“Oh damned Iago! O inhuman dog!” - Roderigo (S1)
“damned”: first time he is described with a negative epithet, first time someone sees him for who he truly is - ironically, it is 1) the most gullible person in the play 2) the first person he deceived at the start of the play = almost cyclical, like the beginning of the end - in killing him, Iago begins to tie off loose ends
L Y P M? / D Y P T G O H E?
“Look you pale mistress? / Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?” - Iago about Bianca (S1)
- directs attention and therefore blame onto Bianca: proves his opportunistic nature but also that he wants to ruin everyone - “enmesh them all”, “all guiltless, meet reproach” - malevolent
- “gastness”: her situationship is literally bleeding out - she’s just shocked and scared - Iago can so easily manipulate morality
- “do you perceive”: THEME OF SIGHT - twists innocuous things into confirmations of deceit like he did with Roderigo “didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?” and with Othello “did you perceive how he laughed at his vice” = from this point we know Bianca is doomed - no going back when Iago has decided you are guilty
I N S H B / N S T W S O H T S […] M A
“I’ll not shed her blood, / nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow […] monumental alabaster-” - Othello (S2)
- “not shed her blood”: complete contrast to when he was saying “I’ll tear her all to pieces” and “let her rot and perish” - when it comes down to it he cannot do something so mutilating 1) (cynical) values her beauty 2) still loves her = internal conflict
- “whiter”, “snow”, “alabaster”: pale, purity and virtue, untainted and innocent 1) Othello recognises this and still murders her - warped sense of reality - losing it = frustration and villainisation 2) her innocence and virtue is basically slapping him in the face but he’s just too far gone to see it = frustration but also pity 3) “alabaster” is stone which could suggest he thinks her virtue is like a façade - now so far manipulated that he no longer knows what he can trust = frustration and pity
S M D, E S B M M
“She must die, else she’ll betray more men.” - Othello (S2)
- “must”: as if it’s his duty and something bad will happen if he doesn’t - doing it for the greater good
- “she’ll betray more men”: justifies it, doesn’t see it as murder but as retribution - echoes Brabantio’s “she hath deceived her father and may thee” - he has evidence that she has deceived before so it is plausible to him to think she will do it again
H Y P T? […] I W N K T U S […] I W N K T S
“Have you prayed tonight […] I would not kill thy unpreparèd spirit […] I would not kill thy soul.” - Othello (S2)
- “prayed”: as if she needs to be absolved of something - convinced
- “would not”: ironic because he’s all taking the moral high ground but he still fully plans to kill her
“spirit”, “soul”: doesn’t want her to go to hell - it seems he doesn’t actually want to hurt her - does want to “shed her blood” doesn’t want to “kill her soul” - he doesn’t want her to suffer any where = he doesn’t actually want to kill her, but he can’t see that from beneath his jealousy, betrayal and Iago’s manipulation - sympathy? ALSO contrasts “let her be damned tonight” - again, it is seeing her that reignites his love
I S M H […] I S T H
“I saw my handkerchief […] I saw the handkerchief.” - Othello (S2)
“saw”: fixation with “ocular proof” - theme of sight but also proof that it can easily be manipulated and misconstrued
T […] M M C W I I T D / A M W I T A S
“Thou […] mak’st me call what I intend to do / A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.” - Othello (S3)
- General vibes: wants to be in the right - wants to be perceived to be in the right
- “I intend”, “I thought”: maybe wavering slightly in his conviction?
- “sacrifice”: like it is costing him something - has stopped pretending that he doesn’t love her but is resolute regardless - makes him seem selfless
M W M W! W W? I H N W
“My wife, my wife! What wife? I have no wife.” - Othello (S2)
- repetition: gravity/reality of what he’s done sinking in
- “my wife”: before her killed her and while he was killing her, he kept calling her a whore “Out strumpet […] Down strumpet!” (repeats it twice so that’s all he has to see her as - not his wife, not a person, not anything of value) but now she’s dead, she’s his wife again 1) regret/hypocrisy/lack of conviction 2) ironic that now she’s dead, he can see her as a person - too late though because “I know not where is that Promethean heat / That can thy light relume”
N; I M […] C M T M K L
“Nobody; I myself […] Commend me to my kind lord.” - Desdemona (S2)
- “I myself”: uses her dying breaths to absolve him (and he’s ungrateful) 1) utter love and devotion = sympathy 2) complete and utter hatred for Othello 3) girl stand up = frustration
- “kind”: he has literally murdered her and she still can’t say a bad word about him + “lord” = on top of that she still respects him
H […] H / A […] D / F […] T / F A W […] R A F
“hell […] heavenly” “angel […] devil” “false […] true” “false as water […] rash as fire” - Othello and Emilia (S2)
- 1) hell = Othello about Desy heavenly = Emilia about Desy 2) angel = Emilia about Desy devil = Emilia about Othello 3) false = Othello about Desy true = Emilia about Desy 4) water = Othello about Desy fire = Emilia about Othello
- binary oppositions draw contrast/comparison between them - where once they were aligned, now they are strangers
G G L M H L T S / T P I H B N N
“Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak. / ‘Tis proper I obey him, but not now.” - Emilia (S2)
- “let me have leave to speak”: commands a room of men - unusual for the time
- “tis proper I obey him”: defies Iago - but still does it respectfully - never truly forgets/rejects her role as a woman and as Iago’s wife
“but not now”: she is Iago’s undoing because she was the one he let into his plans because he thought he would always have control over her - he underestimated her and it ruined him
I S E F B A E
“Iago stabs Emilia from behind and exits.” - Stage directions (S2)
- “stabs Emilia”: the truth is already out now and he is done for - kills her just to punish her = cruel
- “from behind”: 1) betrayal 2) Iago is a coward - not only does he kill and unarmed woman, but he does not even face her as he does it
T A D S
“’Tis a damnèd slave.” - Montano (S2)
- “tis”: has been dehumanised
- “damnèd”: finally, someone of consequence is seeing him as he truly is - too late tho, kinda like a “YOU DON’T DAMN SAY?” type moment
O I-S W! P A T S!
“O ill-starred wench! Pale as thy smock!” - Othello (S2)
- “ill-starred”: 1) general sense of inevitability that underscores the whole play 2) as if fate had something to do with her death, not that he made a very calculated decision to do so even after much internal conflict - tries to absolve himself of blame = contempt
“pale”: was once a symbol of her purity (that gave her so much value: to her father, to the tragedy, to Othello) is now a symbol of her morality - Othello now sees her virtue, but only in her death = pity for her and both pity and contempt for him
T R A M U F (About Othello) T V […] T V”
“this rash and most unfortunate man” (About Othello) “that viper […] the villain” (About Iago) - Lodovico (S2)
- SP leads us to feel more pity than contempt for Othello and to despise Iago entirely
- “rash”: impulsive, not thinking straight
“most unfortunate”: pitiable and not entirely to blame - things happened TO him
- “viper”: biblical allusion to snake = evil, devil, deceptive etc
- “villain”: cruel, calculated and intentionally evil
- “man” vs “Viper”: Othello is allowed to remain a man where Iago is dehumanised into a “viper”
A H M
An honourable murderer.” - Othello (S2)
- even after learning of her innocence, he maintains his = contempt
- oxymoron: still has a warped perception of reality - even though Iago has been thwarted and he has been presented with all the facts, the manipulation runs so deep that still he struggles to differentiate = pity
W Y K Y K / F T T F I N W S W
“what you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak word.” - Iago (S3)
“what you know you know”: especially bitter and cruel on his part but they, in fact, do not “know” because, this whole time he has been influencing and twisting their perceptions of reality
“I never will speak word”: Iago’s power has always been his words and now he continues to exploit this - the last shred of power he holds over them is to torment them with never knowing - final power play - inexplicable because there’s no reason to conceal, he’s been caught
O T L N W B T W
“One that loved, not wisely, but too well” - Othello (S2, FS)
- “wisely”: 1) Desdemona - a) went against all societal conventions, it was deviant and dangerous (and at least the audience knows it got her killed) b) he loved her beyond all rational thought - it addled his senses and his logic 2) Iago - recognises how he should never have put so much trust in him
- “too well”: 1) Desdemona - his love for her was so great that it became a detriment because he was therefore so vulnerable to manipulation because of it a) she brought him a haven of peace (“chaos is come again”) that made him let his guard down b) great capacity to love/to feel comes only with great capacity to hate 2) he was so blinded by his love and trust for Iago that he couldn’t see he was being manipulated and taken advantage of
- MAD PITY
O N E J B B W / P I T E
“One not easily jealous but, being wrought, / Perplexed in the extreme” - Othello (S2, FS)
- “not easily jealous”: 1) wasn’t in his nature, Iago brought it out 2) BUT he was, in fact, very quick to jealousy - becoming obsessed with a mere suggestion from Iago (“thou hast set me on the rack” / “she’s gone, I am abused”) - disdain from audience
- “wrought”: put upon him - he victimises himself = annoying but SP does also remind the audience that without Iago this would not have happened so do not judge Othello too harshly
- “perplexed”: he was confused, manipulated, exploited = pity
T A P / R T A H T
“Threw a pearl away / Richer than all his tribe” - Othello (S2, FS)
- “pearl”: 1) recognises her value (annoying because she’s dead) but also that she always had value and he made a mistake = pity 2) likens her to a material object, a thing - still quite superficial, still sees her as a possession - not fully as he was at the start - still feeling effects of Iago = pity and contempt
I T B T’T T C D / A S H T
“I took by th’throat the circumcisèd dog / And smote him thus [He stabs himself]” - Othello (S2, FS)
- “circumcisèd dog”: racist to himself - ‘others’ himself 1) pity because he has internalised all of this 2) rounds of the idea that his respectability has been a façade this whole time as in committing this violent act he has revealed himself as a true “Moor” that everyone expects of him a) within that, this circles back to the false image Iago gave us of Othello, he now actually embodies this - inevitability? 3) SP reminds his audience that this is what Black people really are - violent, jealous etc
- “stabs himself”: 1) doesn’t want to live with Desy 2) self-hated 3) avoid consequences - cowardice 4) fully resigns himself to hell and damnation (murder AND suicide) - this is the moment HE knows he is damned, even if he thinks he isn’t for the murder - okay with it, knows he deserves it
