Othello Key Quotes Flashcards
Scene 1 setting
The street outside branbantios house, enter Roderigo and iago
Othello= absent structurally-may suggest his marginalisation and mistreatment
Informal - godless , lead to immoral actions
Iago act 1 ‘ mere prattle without practice’ about Cassio
Emphasises the binary between mentality and physicality
He prioritises being a fighter and active soldier
Derogatory pattern of language to describe othello
‘Old black ram’ ‘devil’ ‘ Barbary horse’ ‘beast’
Roderigo and iago are weaponising their own language to vilify othello
These efforts reveal about racial views in Venice could be entrenched and bottled up , undermines the assumption that Venice is cosmopolitan
Symbols in 1.1
Venice= a bastion of cosmopolitan civilisation and commerce, protecting the boundaries of Europe from the Ottoman Empire
Animal imagery and failure to name othello= racism and continual dehumanisation of othello.
Symbols in 1.2
Disease= uncontrollable spread of evil
Misogynistic language= objectify des. ‘Owmned’ by men, commodified and diminished to a sexual symbol
Symbols in 1.3
Council chamber= place of power, confirmed his elevated status
Marriage= in a world of war, othellos marriage appears to be an oasis of calm, offers a possible escape from conflict
Symbols in 2.1
Storm= increasing chaos ; the magnitude of natural forces that dominate mankind, foreshadowing ,characters are subject to forces beyond their control[ nature, fate] or the inversion of the natural order, almost as if Pandora’s box had been opened in retaliation. Universal - could show how their interracial marriage extends beyond iagos manipulation, status quo rebelling.
Cyprus= on the edge of civilisation symbolises chaos and society’s precarious balance.
Sea= symbolise the vastness of othellos love, suggest that the marriage is natural , however the sea is always unpredictable , drowned the Turks but spare the Venetians could symbolise the survival of their love in the face of war, but still be vulnerable to internal turbulence - foreshadowing the internal emotional storm that iago will unleash.
Symbols in 2.3
Drunken bawl- chaos
Shift from blank verse to prose signals increasing disorder = associated with malevolence and destructive impulses
Symbols in 3.3
Handkerchief= traditional love token symbolises their passion, traditional heirloom, suggesting Desdemonas acceptance of his different background. Later becomes a representation of his jealousy n suspicions. Could represent des body, which othello believes has been handled by Cassio.
Symbols in 3.4
Monstrous imagery= unnatural, deviant, immoral behaviour. Iago refers to his plot as a ‘monstrous birth’ and othello calls Desdemonas infidelity ‘ monstrous’ . The fact that othello is copying iagos language could show how is being a luppet of him, parroting his words show how evilness I like a disease and is inherited and transferred onto othello.This demonic imagery alludes to complete, unstoppable and almost unspeakable destruction
Othello: ‘she loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them.’ 1.3
Splitting of sentence evenly across 2 lines of iambic pentameter indicates the reciprocity of their love as their love is divided and shared across the 2 lines, equanimity
Parallelism in the plosives of p and d show the assertiveness in which both characters want to make the marriage happen = bold tone on stage
Chiasmus- reinforces the tightness of their bond, ‘crossing one’s heart’ = telling the truth
Iago ‘virtue! A fig!’ ‘We are thus or thus’ 1.3
In a disdainful retort to roderigo’s confession of being hopelessly in love with des, he expresses his contempt for morality
Swear word ‘fig’ as an insult
Repetition=man fashions his own reality outside of social rules- iago’s belief in man’s malleability and control.
Cassio ‘reputation,reputation, reputation…’
Set up of a drunken brawl by iago and Roderigo, Cassio stabs montano. Othello finds out and he’s demoted.
- tricolon= reflect that honour was above all the most important trait in renaissance Venice and foreshadows the more tragic loss of reputation and honour in des’s wrongful shaming.
-Hyperbolic juxtaposition in ‘immortal’ and bestial’ underscores the extent to which a person is deemed to be no more than an animal with little value. Ironic given iago’s absolute indifference to reputation.
-dramatic irony= iago is the true ‘bestial’ man
Emilia= ‘but jealous souls will not be answered so, they are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous for they are jealous:’‘tis a monster begot upon itself, born on itself.’ 3.4
Intimate conversation with des about men-sharp observation about the nature of jealousy-it is an irrational emotion.
-repetition of ‘jealous’= show she understands that envy does not ever require reason, makes this emotion terrifying bc no one can neither prevent or mitigate jealousy in a partner, and must suffer and live with it.
-metaphor of a monster in itself = emphasises the self-engendering of envy, see her practical wisdom and experienced pessimism
Desdemona= ‘good night,good night: heaven me such send, not to pick bad from bad, but by band mend.’ 4.3
She refuses to compromise her standards of goodness even if it means making herself a martyr.
-first repetition of ‘bad’ refers to the sort of vindictive behaviour that Emilia espouses.
-second ‘bad’ almost functions as a metonym for the women who behave vindictively, so essentially, des is trying to say that she wants to avoid such women.
-rhyming couplet of ‘send| mend’ reinforces the firmness of her moral stance.
List of racial epithets
‘The black othello’ ‘thick lips’ ‘a baboon’ ‘old black ram’ ‘beast’
Othello= ‘keep up your swords, for the dew will rust them’ 1.2
‘Dew’ biblical symbol of god’s blessing and by invoking thus peaceful imagery, othello shows his elevated status and show his ability to rise above conflict, encourage civil discourse and look past the ignorant bigotry against him.
Wins our trust and respect
Othello ‘haply for I am black …declined into the vale of years’ 3.3
Soliloquy
His faith in des’s faithfulness goes from firm to non-existent, feelings for her turn to love to loathing in one scene.
Is mind is one as he cannot see beyond the black and white confines of his tunnel vision
It is the cause soliloquy 5.2 ‘you chaste stars’
Divine imagery summoning the cosmos and making the point that what he is about to do is bigger than himself, it’s about preserving the notion of the ideal and so des must be taken out to prevent the marital idea of faithfulness from being further eroded.
Heroic imagery by personifying himself as a saint and saviour, saving mankind from women’s evilness and the martyrdom of Desdemona would atone for all sins
‘It is the cause’ x3 ‘one more’ x3
Triple repetition = as a compensatory verbal reflex, inability to come up with more concrete, accurate expressions. Ambiguity in language symbolise his mental paralysis or maybe as euphemism to mask the later matricide.
‘One more’ as delay and procrastination [cue to kiss her] wants to remain in the status quo and delay killing
‘The white skin of hers than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster’ ‘light’ plucked the rose’
Simile and nouns ‘snow,alabaster,rose,light’ are all inanimate things, objectification of his wife in ‘snow and alabaster’ idealising her as this untainted, virginal figure. However, these cold and hard substances reveal how from othello’s perspective, des has come across as cold and hard in her inability to empathise with othello’s anxiety about her closeness and championing of cassio[ retract domination in 3.3]
Juxtaposed with light and love in ‘light and rose’ show his fragmented and disjointed mindset, constantly going back and forth.
By associating des with dead inanimate objects as a way to think of her as dead, he is repudiating her humanity and makes it easier for him to commit matricide bc it lessens the gravity of killing someone who’s already dead
Animalistic pattern of language ‘prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, as salt as wolves’ ‘toad’ ‘drown cats and blind puppies’
Could be a manifestation of anger and aggression bc animals were often used as swear words. By othello adopting this animalistic language, he did a complete u turn from blank verse and had therefore been degraded as he lost his humanly and respectable qualities [ GCOB animals were at the bottom symbolising their disconnection from god and the moral righteous path. Filthy and dirty
Like an animal, othello starts to act irrationally from random urges, impulses and spontaneity, rather than out of consciousness, intelligence bc he is not bounded by morality
Paralipsis in othello
Remind the Venetian nobles in his final speech about his service to the Venetian military
Othello is the personification of..
Jealousy
How could it be argued that iago is also consumed by jealousy
He takes sadistic pleasure in watching those succumbing to jealousy through his slanderous lies and mocks those who experience this feeling, he himself is manipulated by it. Jealousy as an all-consuming emotion that acts as a toxic fuel that takes hostage over one’s moral compass.
Othello’s misogynistic statement of ‘o curse of marriage that we call these delicate creatures ours but not their appetites’
Echoes the gustatory motif of food and eating emphasise how he has internalised the misogynistic prejudices of the Venetian patriarchal society due to the disintegration of his once authoritative,but artificial identity.
What does the motif of food and eating evoked in the noun ‘appetite’ demonstrate
Anxieties of men, within the patriarchal society, and surrounded by the uncontrollable nature of female desires.
The emasculating nature of female sexuality that cannot be posed by men, fuels their jealousy and anxiety
What supports coleridge’s statement that iago is driven by ‘motiveless malignity’
Iago’s jealousy driven by his Machiavellian manipulation of othello
‘If I do prove her haggard’ in juxtaposition his….
Earlier idealisation of Desdemona
‘Whiteness’ of desdemona’s skin shows how he perceives whiteness as a superior value ….
Suggesting that jealousy has forced him to internalise the Elizabethan prejudicial stereotypes surrounding moors
What were moors described as
Lascivious, highly emotional, violent, immoral and dangerous, associated with black magic and witchcraft
What could whiteness symbolise?
Purity,innocence, a signature of renaissance female beauty
What obfuscates othello’s moral judgement?
Jealousy
