Othello quotes Flashcards
Filling in the blanks & analysis pointers
I know…
our country disposition well:
In Venice they do let God see the pranks.
- reinforces cynical view of Venice, whereby its cosmopolitan environment plants the seeds of immorality
- suggests that in Venice, people are tolerant of immoral behavior and condone it, referring to it as ‘pranks’ (tone of mischeviousness)
- women are fueled by lust & are bound by their appetite
- reflects Iago’s Machiavellianism and his tendency to see human behavior in a lens of deceit
- Iago exploits Venice’s cosmopolitan environment to suggest that this tolerance extends to moral laxity.
- In a society where freedom is celebrated, moral boundaries are easily blurred
“She did…”
deceive her father, marrying you.
* Iago misrepresents Desdemona by casting doubt onto her character.
* Iago’s aim to erode Desdemona’s dignity exemplifies his Machiavellianism;
* her agency/autonomy of choosing Othello are undermined by Iago’s characterisation of her as deceitful
AO2 - connotations of deception
AO3 - women are subordinate to their male of kin, such as the father - they act as their possessions and are bound to them.
Reflects societal expectations for women to be obedient to their husbands
“I demand…”
ocular proof.
- Irony: Othello demands concrete evidence but is already convinced that she is unfaithful just by losing the handkerchief
- Both lovers occupy two spheres of suspicion:
1. Desdemona wants to test whether he has actually changed by seeing how he reacts to her losing it
2. Othello doesn’t take any avenue of reconciliation, and instead wants to murder his wife - Both Othello and Desdemona change the meaning of the handkerchief
- This means they create the conflict for themselves – Othello interprets it as a loss of fidelity, Desdemona’s lack of assertiveness in her innocence makes her look guilty
AO3 - Women are meant to be subordinate and virginal for their husbands, not sexually uncontrolled; Othello’s quick assumption may derive from the fact that Desdemona is a Venetian woman
[He puts
the handkerchief from him, and then she drops it.]
- Act of Othello putting it away symbolises a detachment from the sentimental value of their love
- By distancing himself from the handkerchief, he subliminally severs their emotional ties associated with the token of love he gave to her
- D dropping the handkerchief also symbolises the unraveling of their love
- The handkerchief, which represents fidelity, falls to the ground, hinting at fallen love
AO3 - Cuckoldry and admitting to being cuckolded is humiliating and allows a man to be subject to mockery
I saw…
my handkerchief in’s hand. / O’ perjured woman! Thou dost stoned my heart.
- The metaphorical image of his heart being “stoned” suggests not only a hardening of his emotions but also a profound sense of pain and numbness.
-
excalamatory sentence shows depth of emotional upheaval in his psyche
AO3 - By becoming irrational and so engendered by Iago’s deception, Othello behaves almost animal-like, which puts him below the Great Chain of Being from Man.
Damn…
her, lewd minx! O, damn her, damn her!
* Iago’s Machiavellianist tactics to shift Othello’s engrossment of Desdemona towards hatred proves to be successful, via the repetition of exclamatories and derogatory language = resignation of love
* His insecurities about Desdemona have culminated into a deep-seated rage, blinding him to reason and rationality
AO3 - Venice has a reputation of enabling sexual freedoms; Venetian women are hypersexual and uncontrolled in their lustful nature in Iago’s misogynist view
- Women in Othello are seen to represent honesty compared to the men.
- However, because of their lower social status, that honesty is constantly questioned and twisted into something deceptive
- This is a technique Shakespeare repeatedly uses throughout the play, creating a heightened sense of tension
She loved…
me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she pitied them.
- This highlights the reciprocal nature of their love, whereby their love is based on empathy and understanding, which makes it a foundational aspect of their relationship
- “She loved me for the dangers I had passed” shows that Desdemona’s love towards Othello is rooted from his experiences & hardships as a brave Venetian soldier
- The emotive language “dangers” creates pathos within the audience (especially a Jacobean audience as the religious conflict between the Muslim Ottoman Empire & the Christian Republic of Venice war was occurring in the midst of the era) as they honor the sacrifices he has made
- Highlights a romanticised notion of love based on the sacrifices of the beloved
- “I loved her that she pitied them” reveals a tender side to Othello as he is drawn to her because of her empathy to his vulnerability
- However, this leaves the audience questioning whether this really is true love or just hero worship
- It creates the impression that Desdemona’s love for him stems from deep-seated admiration of his heroism rather than a deep understanding of his character
- True love transcends beyond external accomplishments, and instead is grounded in a profound connection between individuals
If…
after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death.
- These loving words from Othello show that natural disasters cannot shake their love, because Desdemona’s presence alone calms him
- The violent imagery of the ‘tempest’ shows that after all the hardships Othello has endured, she is his reward after the darkness
- Desdemona and hardships are juxtaposed, whereby SHE IS HIS SOLACE against the unpredictability of being a Venetian soldier.
HOWEVER, IT SERVES AS A PROLEPTIC IRONY FOR THE EVENTS THAT HAVE YET TO UNFOLD:
* Love, like the calm after a tempest, can be fleeting
* This shows that although natural interventions cannot taint their love, human interventions can, which foreshadows the unraveling of their relationship at the hands of Iago
The motif of the ‘tempest’ is also used in Shakespeare’s other works, including Sonnet 116:
“LOVE LOOKS ON TEMPESTS AND IS NEVER SHAKEN: underlines Shakespeare’s glamorisation of true love, whereby it cannot be broken by natural forces, whether it be small or large.
Shall…
I deny you? No; farewell, my lord.
* D is the personification of obedience & chastity
* Despite being persistent, she prevails the cultural norm to be obedient to her husband
* She understands her role as a wife in the Elizabethan society
AO2 - short sentence
With…
as little a web as this will I /
Ensnare as great a fly as Cassio
- Like the intricate patterns of a spider’s web, Iago’s manipulative schemes are meticulously, intricately planned
- Emphasises superficiality of male friendships, which contrasts against the female friendship shared by Emilia and Des
-
Simile ‘as great a fly’ suggests Cassio is easily controlled; a nuisance to be dealt with - a target of manipulation
AO3 - A man values their reputation more than they do in their friendships; hence why cuckoldry or the loss of a position irks them so
They
all but stomachs, and we all but food, / To eat us hungerly, and when they are done, they belch us.
AO2 - metaphor, semantic field
* metaphor compares sexual desire to gluttony - men view women as a means to an end
* Emilia remains a pragmatist throughout the play, despite everyone else enveloped in panic
* Her cynical view of male dominance makes her singularly astute and wise
* She sees the world as a corrupt force, and deems marriage as a farce as she distrusts men, thinking they use women to their own benefit
* However wise she is though, she has no autonomy over the outcome of the play, as she is a woman, an adulteress and a maid, so she goes unlistened to
* It is because of Emilia that we can cut through the noise of patriarchal narrative and listen to the female perspective
* We find an ally in Emilia; arguably Shakespeare’s voice. She’s a conduit through which audience can find catharsis and satisfaction despite their helplessness to what happens on stage
Willow song
- Despite E & D being foils of each other, they rejoice together in platonic love through their deaths. The Willow song is symbolic of a ubiquitous experience of women over time. Sororal bond shows importance of solidarity of women in a patriarchal society
- Their fate reflects a trans-historical commentary on the prejudice of women, in which women bond during times of adversity
- Contrasts against Iago’s superficial viewpoint of male friendships.
In a contemporary context, their deaths symbolise the spiritual deaths of modern women - women who have ‘defied’ cultural norms are slandered by society.
Emilia, which is Shakespeare’s representation of an outspoken feminist, is shunned for commentating against injustice fostered by the patriarchy.
Hell…
and night, must bring this monstrous birth to light.
- Solilloquy shows audience his meticulous rationale where he can victimise himself whilst pulling the strings
- ‘Hell’ and ‘night’ creates a semantic field of ominosity, which reflects Iago’s malevolent intentions to bring about paramount destruction
- also implies a secretive agenda, as he intends to operate in the shadows using deception to maintain order
- ‘Monstrous birth’ shows that what he has under his sleeve is that of scorn
AO3 - By calling on forth the dark forces, Iago almost aligns himself with the wicked forces from the Great Chain of Being, making him a threat to society, as this monstrous imagery paints ideas of devils and witchcraft
Reputation…
is an idle and most false imposition.
- superlative ‘most false’ furthers the dramatic irony, as he denounces reputation as nothing but a social construct, yet his overarching aims to destroy the relationships around him stem from his anger of not being promoted - juxtaposes his aims
- His ego was tained due to his reputation being overlooked by Othello
- While it is true that reputation is a social construct, he uses this ideology to his own benefit
- If people were to not conceptualise reputation, they would be more impressionable and susceptible to become a victim of his narssicism
AO3 - This is even ironic as Iago holds his reputation highly; he doesn’t like being a cuckolded man by his wife nor the loss of his position, creating him a possible subject to mockery and derision
I am…
not what I am.
AO2 - parodic allusion to exodus 3:14
* short, clinical centence displays Iago’s deliberate use of a false identity, which aligns with his sadistic pleasure he revels in as he presents a facade to lead people astray
* It unfolds a character who doesn’t have a fixed or ‘human’ identity, which makes him fluid in deceiving at will
AO3 - Iago may have been aligning himself with the dark forces, which goes against the natural order
- general dramatic convention was that Moors were menaces eyeing the prize of destruction, and when they appeared on stage, it was seen as a threat to the social fabric
- clearly, Othello and this convention are foils of each other
- ironically, it is Iago that fits within this expectation
An old…
black ram / Is tupping your white ewe
- AO2 - adjectives
- racially charged language portrays Othello’s sexual relationship with Desdemona as unnatural
- establishes a binary between black and white
- AO3 - reinforces cultural ideas of black Africans being hypersexual. Elizabethan prejudice towards them in England and growing European participation in slave trade reflected
You’ll have your…
daughter covered with a Barbary horse (Iago to Brabantio)
- AO2: animalistic description of Othello creates imagery of him as non-human. Depicts mixing of races as an obscene interspecies relationship
- ‘covered’ = mating = dehumanises Othello, as if Desdemona is ‘defiled’ in an unnatural way
- AO3: Barbary horses were known in Elizabethan England for their exotic origin and strength, but also associated with being untamed and “foreign”
son-in-law…
is far more fair than black.
- AO2: oxymoron, connotations of ‘fair’ and ‘black’
- Despite his subverted portrayal of the black Moor, his outsider status is always countered by the emphasis on his nobility and status as a military leader
- his character (honest, loyal, trustworthy) is valued in the Venetian court
- AO3: negative perception of Moors in Elizabethan plays, ‘Moor’ was defined as infidel, non-Christian, barbarian = Elizabethan attitudes towards blackness as negative regardless of background
[Othello] is of a free and…
open nature / That thinks men honest but seem to be so / […] As asses are
- Iago perceives Othello as naive and gullible, paralleling the superiority Europeans felt over the ‘uncivilised’ Africans
- Iago intends to use Othello just as he will use Roderigo, exploiting the man’s naïve belief in the reality of appearances to lead him (like a trusting donkey) to the destruction of his marriage and religious identity.
Hath she forsook […]
her father, and her country, and her friends, to be called whore? Would it not make one weep?
- AO2: asyndetic listing, rhetorical question
- Emilia is the only person capable of empathising with D and understands the great sacrifice she has made to be with Othello
- D’s bond with Emilia is the only thing protecting her from complete loneliness or slander
- Shakespeare shows how the only reward women were given for their devotion to men was abuse
- When all the men have abandoned D to her fate, believing Othello’s word over hers, she advocates for her and exonerates her of guilt
AO3: sororal bond between D and E illustrates importance of solidarity of women in a patriarchal society
If any wretch…
have put this in your head, let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse!
AO2: Biblical allusions
* references ‘curse’ God put upon the snake in the Garden of Eden for misleading Eve
* allusion portrays slander against D’s good name as an introduction of sin into a fundamentally pure thing,
* just as the serpent introduced sin to the world through fall of Eve
* Eve is traditionally perceived as the first ‘fallen woman’, and Othello blames D for her ‘betrayal’ like how Eve is blamed for her actions in the Garden
He smothers her.
- Possible interpretations of the stage directions where Othello stands over Desdemona suggests his dominance, heightening tension for the catastrophe according to Aristotleian conventions of tragedy.
- Moreover, a sense of anagnorisis comes after Desdemona’s death, indicating a need for the female voice to be suppressed for social restoration, argued by Tennenhouse.
Then Lord have mercy on me! (Desdemona)
- ‘Lord’ - has a double meaning of calling onto God in Christian belief and Othello as Desdemona’s ‘Lord’ -
- placing him indirectly on a pedestal built up by love - hamartial fatal flaw as she always sees the good in people, speaks with her emotions
AO3: her ‘fatal flaw’ as her worship of Othello becomes her own undoing - the 10 commandments of the Bible where a Christian shall not have other ‘Gods’
Poor and content…
is rich, and rich enough; But riches fineless is as poor as winter
Repetition of ‘riches’ - emphasises the value of women as an addition to men’s position in society - objectifies/reduces women to mere possessions
- Brabantio’s character only exists at the beginning of the play where he still has ‘ownership’ over Desdemona, but no longer mentioned later on, suggesting he lost ownership over her after Desdemona’s marriage to Othello
- women playing crucial part in a man’s identity/their significance in society
AO3: Elizabethan society - women belong to their fathers before marriage & to their husbands after marriage (allusion to the Bible/theocentric society) - Othello’s ‘otherness’, being Muslim & of a different religion, perhaps a cause to their failed marriage
