Othello - AO3 - Literary Context.

Question 1

What is the biblical link made by Iago in Act 1, Scene 1?

Answer 1

“In following him I follow but myself” (line 57) - IAGO
- This is a biblical link to Exodus 314, from the Bible.

God says “I am what i am” therefore Iago wants to play God.

Question 2

Where does Shakespeare allude to a roman god in Act 1, Scene 2 and why?

Answer 2

“By Janus, I think no” - IAGO

● Shakespeare alludes to the two-faced Roman god, Janus. Iago is similarly two-faced, portrayed again and again as someone who is duplicitous and not to be trusted. Throughout the play, Iago is revealed to be an adept liar capable of gaining the trust, however misplaced, of the people he wants to manipulate: “By Janus, I think no,” he says, evoking his own pantheistic counterpart. Ironic that he swears on a 2 faced god.

Question 3

What happened to women in the Jacobean era in relation to their fathers and marriage?

Answer 3

In the Jacobean era, women were owned by their fathers until they got married.

Question 4

Othello uses a rhetorical tactic like those used by which other Shakespeare character?

Answer 4

Othello uses a rhetorical tactic like those used by Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Question 5

What were women treated as in the Elizabethan era in terms of men?

Answer 5

Elizabethan era women are not considered people in their own right, they had no autonomy and only ever existed in relation to men.

Question 6

How could an alternative reader perceive Desdemona and Iago’s flirtatious conversation?

Answer 6

An alternative reader may suggest that Desdemona is simply fulfilling the expectation of women during the Elizabethan era where women should always behave in a pleasant, agreeable manner, rather than expressing strong opinions.

Such ambiguity highlights the difficulty of adhering to the strict, complex, and inherently sexist code of behavior demanded of women.

Question 7

What does Othello’s hyperbolised imagery of Desdemona have strong overtones of?

Answer 7

Medieval courtly love where the woman’s purity is worshipped and idolised, envicing the high premium placed upon the fidelity and purity of wives in Renaissance literature.

Question 8

What does Othello’s domination over conversation with Desdemona show?

Answer 8

The fact that Othello dominates the conversation is emblematic of Jacobean notions of women where they are submissive and follow reverently behind males.

Question 9

What does the quote “Her eye must be fed” - IAGO TO RODERIGO contextually reference?

Answer 9

This assertion is polysemous as it conveys the typical Jacobean view of venetian women that women are fickle and shallow, and emphasises the idea that Desdemona and Othello’s union isn’t viable.

Question 10

What does Cassio’s “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!” to Iago confirm?

Answer 10

Cassio’s statement confirms the huge value placed on reputation during the
Elizabethan era with the triplet “reputation, reputation, reputation” emphasising the immediacy with which he is ruined despite.

Question 11

What did renaissance men suspect their wives of?

Answer 11

Renaissance men often suspected their wives of adultery because of the stigma around being a “cuckold.”

• A cuckolded man (a man whose wife is cheating on him) faced both social humiliation and ruined credit. -

Question 12

What does Emilia immediately exist to be?

Answer 12

Emilia immediately exists to be an obedient wife typical of a Jacobean wife, cementing the idea that their marriage is not based off of love.

Question 13

What does Othello’s reference to ‘the rack’ mean?

Answer 13

● Othello makes reference to “the rack,” an infamous medieval torture device which stretches the prisoner’s limbs in opposite directions. Othello’s point is that knowing just “a little” about Desdemona’s adultery is the greatest torture of all. Even full knowledge of the situation is manageable by comparison.

Question 14

What does “Her name, that was as fresh as Dian’s visage” link to?

Answer 14

“fresh as Dian’s”—an allusion to the Greek goddess Diana, whose virginity and moonlike skin are used to symbolise purity. Now her face is as “black” as Othello’s, an image that draws again on the play’s complicated association between racial blackness and moral blackness.

Question 15

What does Shakespeare double connotate when Othello says “Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!”?

Answer 15

● Othello expresses his internal shift from love to hate. He characterises his vengeance as “black,” drawing upon both racial and moral connotations.

Question 16

What does Emilia asserty about Elizabethan men with the metaphor of “Men are all but stomachs and we all but food”?

Answer 16

● Here, Emilia uses this metaphor of “stomachs” coupled with the euphemism of “belch us” Emilia asserts that Elizabethan men are predatory and treat women as commodities; once their needs and pleasures are satisfied they become surplus to requirement.

Question 17

What does the quote “And thither comes the bauble” from Cassio state about Bianca?

Answer 17

● Cassio refers to her as a “bauble” - a cheap piece of jewelry, and thus the “bauble” becomes both a metaphor and metonymy (substituting a name for an object) for Bianca. This line is one of several instances throughout the play in which women are referred to as objects of monetary value.

Question 18

What is the contextual links between “Lay on my bed my wedding sheets” for Elizabethan times?

Answer 18

● It was a tradition in Elizabethan times for a newlywed couple to display their bedsheets in public. The bloodstains on the sheets would serve as proof of the bride’s preserved virginity.

Question 19

What is the view on suicide in Roman and Greek tradgedy?

Answer 19

In Greek and Roman tragedies committing suicide was seen as a noble way to protect one’s honour from disgrace, thus making Othello’s act of killing himself heroic.

Question 20

What does the medieval Morality Play have to do with Othello?

Answer 20

The tradition of the medieval Morality Play was still familiar in Shakespeare’s day and certainly influenced him. Othello’s striking placement between lago and Desdemona resembles the situation of the central character in a morality play: symbolic of the human soul, he was placed between an angel and a devil who each demanded his loyalty.