Othello Context

Question 1

What is a conventional image of a cuckold?

Answer 1

• man growing horns from forehead that everyone could see but him

Question 2

What were attitudes towards infidelity at this time? Women and men

Answer 2

• women = harshly judged

- men = far milder social stigma

Question 3

Why was having an unfaithful wife perceived as a great shame for men at the time?

Answer 3

• implied lack of masculine authority and power over wife (challenges their role as the patriarch)
• suggestion of sexual inadequacy

Question 4

Stories of the time began to explore social anxieties around infidelity. In Othello, what happens when a woman is not perceived to be chaste and pure?

Answer 4

• ostracised, killed

- patriarchy protects itself

Question 5

When Jacobean tragedies deal with extra-marital love, there is a strong connection between love, sex and violence. These texts primarily focus on male infidelity, would they have the same focus if they discussed female infidelity?

Answer 5

• no, women don’t have the capacity to be that violent
• females have to conform, honour is connected to subservience
• there is a natural assumption that it is unnatural for women to act on their sexual desires

Question 6

What did Renaissance writing assume about verbal freedom?

Answer 6

• that it equated to sexual freedom so female characters with a powerful voice were considered inappropriate

Question 7

Why was there especial concern over masculinity and masculine honour codes in the Elizabethan period?

Answer 7

• time of great change
• new masculine honour codes emerged
• performance of masculinity changed and anxiety emerged around this

Question 8

What did English law specify about the murder of a wife by a husband?

Answer 8

• could be excused if it took place in the first flush of anger

Question 9

What typical and recognisable genre does Shakespeare draw upon?

Answer 9

• Elizabethan style revenge tragedy

Question 10

In what way did the marriage ceremony force part of the patriarchal societal structure?

Answer 10

• transfer of woman from father to husband

- woman as property of their husband

Question 11

What were the gender roles within marriages at this time?

Answer 11

• woman = subservient, domestic role, duty to ones husband was very important
• men = head of household

Question 12

What is the concept of the ‘marriage yolk’?

Answer 12

• the idea that men were softened or emasculated through marriage

Question 13

How were unmarried women (think of Bianca) treated in society?

Answer 13

• could not have relationships

- had to support themselves

Question 14

How do attitudes towards divorce create a sense of claustrophobia in the marriages in Othello?

Answer 14

• divorce was impossible

Question 15

What double standards existed in relation to sex?

Answer 15

• men were expected to engage in sexual relations in and outside of marriage
• women were ostracised for extra-marital sex

Question 16

Why was female sexually seen as intrinsically threatening to the patriarchal social order?

Answer 16

• suggested female agency

Question 17

Shakespeare utilises setting as a device and relies on the audience’s preconceived stereotypes around the places to serve the full effect of his meaning. What does Venice connote? How does Shakespeare use this?

Answer 17

• connotes order and rules
• but the contemporary audience would also connect it to licentiousness, especially connected to courtesans
• becomes essential to Iago’s exploitation as he manipulates Othello’s otherness and frames Desdemona as the ‘Venecian woman’
• may have an underlying connection to manipulation and deceit as it has connotations of Machiavelli

Question 18

Shakespeare utilises setting as a device and relies on the audience’s preconceived stereotypes around the places to serve the full effect of his meaning. What does Cyprus connote?

Answer 18

• edge of the empire
• unstable, violent and fragile
• birthplace of Venus (goddess of love) - tragically ironic that this is where love dies

Question 19

How does the transition relate to the genre of Othello as a tragedy?

Answer 19

• progresses from order to chaos

- from “Christian civilisation” to an “unstable outpost”

Question 20

What occurs in Cyprus that confirms the audience’s stereotypes?

Answer 20

• the fall of a great man due to drunkness ie. Cassio, reputation destroyed
• interruption on their wedding night by violence and soldier “tis the soldier life to have his balmy slumbers waked with strife”

Question 21

How could Venice represent Othello?

Answer 21

• calm, comfortable in the soldier sphere

Question 22

How could Cyprus represent Othello?

Answer 22

• dangerous and violent, introduction of the conflict between the lover and the soldier roles, unstable and lacking control