Othello Critics Flashcards
Ruth Cowling
An alien in a white society
Anita Loomba
Women and blacks exist as ‘the other’
Richard Lees
Othello’s isolation is emphasised casually and continually
Helen Gardner
He is a stranger, a man of alien race
R.A Foakes
Iago is not acting from personal jealousy of Cassio and Othello, but from a much more general stance of simple hatred for what is good
Honingmann
[Roderigo] activates poisonous impulses in Iago
William Hazlitt
[Iago] plots the ruin of his friends as an exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to prevent ennui
Harry L Warnken
His [Othello] thoughts and feelings echo Iago’s
David Bell
Othello’s relationship with Desdemona as a re-enactment of the Oedipus complex: the General’s notion of his bride as the perfect woman – the pre-Oedipal mother figure – is contaminated by Iago’s insinuation that Desdemona is a sexual being – the whore who ‘betrays’ her child.
Kenneth Muir
Othello’s fatal flaw was his credulity
A.C Bradley
(Desdemona) helplessly passive
Lisa Jardin
Desdemona becomes a stereotype of female passivity
Marian Cox
All three woman endanger their lives, and two of them lose it, for daring to break the silence
Kenneth Muir 2
That Othello in such circumstances refers to his services to Venice has been regarded as a sign of egotism. An Elizabethan audience would have seen it rather as the natural expression of proper pride.
Jarvis
a whores death for all her innocences
Eileen Abrahams
[Emilia] accepts her social role. But she does not identify with it
