quotes othello Flashcards
quote depicting desdemona as an object to be stolen
“Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!
Thieves, thieves!”
o Perpertrating racist stereotypes again and forcing audience against Othello o Reducing Desdemona to an object, something to be stolen In a feminist reading of the play it is important also to consider the metaphors comparing Desdemona to ‘bags’ and Othello to ‘thieves’. What does this imply about the patriarchal authority of Brabantio? Look out for this motif [a repeated pattern] as the play continues.
- “Even now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise”
“boarded a
land carrack”
she is abus’d,
stol’n from me, and corrupted By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks; For nature so preposterousl to err, Being not deficient, blind or lame of sense, Ssans witchcraft could not.”
“I do beseech you, Send for
the lady to the Sagittary, And let her speak of me before her father”
“if virtue no
delighted beauty lack, Your son in law is far more fair than black”
“one that excels
the quirks of blazoning pens
who is petrarch
Note also the Petrarchan language Cassio uses [that is, the language of the Italian poet, Petrarch, famous for his extravagant descriptions of a lady he loved, Laura, in his sonnets], describing the general’s wife in hyperbolic terms
“O, behold, The riches
of the ship is come on shore!”
o Objectification despite Petrarchan language
o Language of courtly love AND misogyny
Hyperbolic extravagance in Petrarchan language
- Iago and Desdemona banter back and forth in act 2 scene 1
“Come on, come on: you are pictures out of doors,
bells in your parlours,
wild cats in your kitchens,
saints in your injuries,
devils being offended,
players in your housewifery, and
housewives in your beds”
§ Women are like a bell (loud and screechy)
§ Misogynistic jokes and images
§ Femininity defined by beauty
§ Viciousness is a woman’s thing: kitchens are their territory
§ ‘angel in the house’
· Angelic motherly woman
Like 1950s ideal
“You rise to play and go to bed to work”
§ Like prostitutes
§ Women’s job is childbirth. Sex centered around male pleasure
With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. (Act 2.1.168)
The metaphor here is of Iago as a predatory spider anticipating Cassio’s downfall. It is also significant that in this soliloquy, Iago shifts into a prose that contrasts with the verse with which he conversed with Desdemona. This shift seems to give an apparent intimacy in his exchange with the audience as he moves out of the locus and into the plate.
There is something else that is interesting about this soliloquy: as Iago observes what happens on stage, he comments on the action to both us and in the second person to Cassio—although Cassio cannot, of course, hear him. The overall arc of the speech is thus a contrast between ‘I’ and you’. But this simple binary becomes a triad: the ‘I’ of Iago addresses the unhearing ‘you’ of Cassio, but when he talks about ‘he’ he is addressing a third party, us, the audience. What kind of relationship does this establish between Iago and the audience?
Act 2 Scene 3 begins with Othello metaphorically comparing the consummation of his marriage with Desdemona with a financial transaction:
The purchase made, the
fruits are to ensue
That profit’s yet to come ‘tween me and you. (2.3.10)
This rhyming couplet perhaps hints at the gender inequality so evident in the play with its figurative reduction of Desdemona to an object through the vehicle of the metaphor—a ripe fruit Othello has purchased, with its implication that she is defined by her fertility, her ability to bear children and thereby provide ‘profit’ both in terms of Othello’s sexual pleasure and in terms of her bringing ‘forth fruit’ by having children.
Note the shift from Othello’s verse to Iago’s bawdy prose which, again, maintains his pathological obsession with Othello and Desdemona’s sexual relationship. (2.3.15)
o “well happiness to the sheets!”
o Metronym
o Pathological obsession
o Desdemona and Othello
o Othello and Desdemona’s bedsheets have an important symbolism in the latter stages of the play so it is, perhaps, significant that Iago uses the sheets here as a metonym for their sexual relationship. Yet there is also something voyeuristic about the idea of the sheets gaining satisfaction as witnesses their sexual union–a voyeurism which is, of course, also a key part of the theatrical experience. How does this align the audience?
“If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heart strings, id whistle her off and let her down the wind To prey at fortune”
o Untrained young hawk. Captures prey.
If he cant tame her he will ‘let her go’
They are all but stomachs
and we all but food: They eat us hungry, and when they are full, They belch us.
o Women are consumable
o Exist to sustain men
o Men defined by stomachs – hangry
o Synecdoche
§ Metaphor
§ Subset of metonymy
Part of something that stands for the whole
“there, give it your hobby-horse, wheresoever you had it.”
bianca distiguishes herself from this.
all three women labelled strumpets
- Act one set in Christian Europe
- Rest of play set in Cyprus
o Widely contested
o Being threatened by Ottoman Empire
o Conflicted liminal space
§ The play is largely about contested identities
o Muslim
§ Othello is likely from North Africa (muslim) but is a Christian.
§ Unusual at the time?
“his moorship’s ancient”
o Defined by his race
o Portmanteau representing the mixed race relationship of Othello and Desdemona
o As you read the play, note how other characters—including Desdemona—refer to Othello as ‘Moor’. In line 33, for example, think about the mocking blend-word, ‘Moorship’—combining ‘Moor’ with ‘lordship. What does this imply about Iago’s conception of race?
o You may want to consider here also Iago’s name. (Remember, he was just referred to as the ‘ensign’ in Shakespeare’s source for the story.) Iago takes his name from Spain’s patron saint, famous for conquering the Moors. In 939 CE Santiago (Saint Iago or Saint James) delivered Castille from the Moors. He is traditionally depicted in paintings on a white charger trampling Moors underfoot (see right for an anonymous 18th Century painting).
o Whilst thinking about names, it may also be worth noting that the name Cinthio gives to his tragic heroine, Disdemona, which comes from a word meaning ‘unfortunate’ in Greek. What does this suggest about the tragic inevitability of her death? Interestingly, Shakespeare was perhaps influenced in choosing the name Othello, not from references to Moors, but from the name of the jealous husband in the work of the rival poet, Ben Jonson, entitles ‘Every Man in His Humor’. Thorello in Jonson’s play is a jealous husband—just like Shakespeare’s Othello; this could suggest that it is his jealousy and not his race that might define his character.
- “thick lips”
o Racist language
o Reaffirms Othello is viewed primarily as his race
o Gets audience to oppose Othello before he has even entered the scene.
Technically, ‘thicklips’ is actually an example of synecdoche (a subset of metonymy!) where a part of something stands in for the whole. What is the effect of this synecdoche here? Think about the effect of defining him by stereotypes of sub Saharan African appearance.
- “Thou hast enchanted her”
o Genuine accusation
§ Magic is not good in this scenario as he is associating Othello (and his race and religion) with racist stereotypes.
o “if she in chains of magic were not bound”
Brabantio refuses to accept that his daughter Desdemona can willingly have married Othello. He therefore wonders with what ‘foul charms’ he has ‘abused her delicate youth.’ His assumption here is that Othello must have used black magic to win the love of his daughter. This does not seem to be a metaphor for Brabantio. Look also at how he picks up on Iago and Roderigo’s metaphors of Desdemona as a possession here. (Act 1.2.73)
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation, I have lost the immortal part of myself – and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation. (Act 2.3.245)
- Another important line emphasising the importance of masculine honour in Venetian society is when Cassio, in response to his dismissal by Othello shifts from the formal verse in which he has previously conversed into prose. He says:
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation, I have lost the immortal part of myself – and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation. (Act 2.3.245)
The repetition of ‘reputation’ here is significant as it is transformed into some intrinsic part of himself. Indeed, the figurative idea of his ‘reputation’ as the ‘immortal part’ of him, leaving only what is ‘bestial’ metaphorically aligns his reputation with his soul. This potentially transgressive [going against societal values] suggestion, making honour seem more important even than morality or religion, highlights the dysfunctional nature of the masculine world in which the play is set. Moreover, given how in Shakespeare’s performances actors were only given their own lines and the two or three cue words from the preceding speech, and given that plays were rehearsed only once or twice before performance, the repetition of ‘reputation’ would, as Iago’s cue, cause the actor playing the latter character to interrupt Cassio’s lament, adding to the disorder and confusion of the scene.
generic confusion
o Affairs of state and war vs romance and daughter running away/undermining him
o History (Richard I etc) and domestic tragedy. (city comedy where they get married at the end and ordinary people get into affairs etc)
Agonosis is to see something again
- Othello as Cyprus
§ Place of conflict/battleground/debate of racist ideas
- Cinthio’s action has little to do with Venice although his story begins and ends there. Shakespeare makes much of the contrast between Venice as a famous city-state, home of law and order, and Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite in Greek mythology located in a liminal [in between] position between Europe and the perceived threat posed by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. It is only Act 1 which takes place in Venice in the play. Note, however, how the Turkish threat is dismissed in Act 2.1 as it is destroyed by a storm—much like the Spanish Armada was in 1588. This shifts the focus of the tragedy from the affairs of the state to the domestic world of Othello and Desdemona and it moves the play generically [in terms of genre] from Shakespeare’s history plays of the 1590s concerned with affairs of state, towards something that seems to prefigure the domestic tragedies of the 20th Century.
- Othello is explatory in genre between historical, comical and tragical.
o Exploring race like exploring new literature??
o Song in scene 3, line 60.
o Email / Desdemona vs Iago
o English people drinking, playing with audience response
o Groundilings all join in and drink “is your englishman so equisite in his drinking”
§ Stagery
o Shifts between verse and prose or, indeed, rhyming couplets always signal moments of change in Shakespeare’s plays. Look at the shift in tone here to the drinking games and songs.
Othello hits Desdemona in public
o Represents the wild mayhem of cyprus as compared to venice
Lodovico represents the law and order of venice. Cant believe what he’s seeing
- “I had thought to have yerk’d him here, under the ribs.”
“Tis better as it is”
Othello’s first line
o Othello’s first line
o First impressions is peaceful and defined by restraint, resistance, reluctance to fight (changes throughout play)
o Iago retains total linguistic control
Iago shows his capacity for dissembling when he feigns anger at the way in which Roderigo has spoken of Othello and stoked up trouble for him:
“Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them”
o Quick initial confidence
o One of Othello’s first lines
o Shows stability and security in himself
o Total power (dew not blood will rust the swords)
Othello again shows his calm dignity when he is confronted by Roderigo and Brabantio:
“I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration, and what mighty magic, For such proceeding I am charg’d withal, I won his daughter”
She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d, And I lov’d her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have us’d: Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
o Turns the threat into embellishment about total control (of his language
o Metaphor
Despite Othello’s claim to be ‘rude’ in his speech, it can be seen that he exhibits both considerable lyricism and a calm dignity when he answers Brabantio’s charge by saying this
Note how Othello is speaking in blank verse [unrhymed iambic pentameter] also, unlike the coarse prose and profanity-filled verse of Iago and Roderigo earlier in the play. Structurally, what is the effect of this? Does Othello speak in verse throughout the play? Note where he shifts into prose and what this might signify later on.
“Men should be what thye seem: Or those that be not, woud they might seem none. Certain, men should be what they seem!”
o Slippage between copular verbs
o Copular – brings something into exidtence.
Represents. World slpis out from under Othello. Cant trust
hamartia
The most distinctive feature of the Aristotelian tragic hero is hamartia; his downfall must be brought about by a character flaw or flaw in judgment that leads to his destruction. In Othello’s case, this could be jealousy; his blindness to the inherent racism of his society (symbolised by Iago); impulsive behaviour; or his faith in the honesty of human nature.
Hamartia is more than a moral weakness; it is a crucial mistake on the part of the tragic hero that causes him to plunge from greatness to grief. Othello’s mistake as a tragic hero is believing Iago’s treacherous lies about Desdemona’s unfaithfulness. Instead of investigating the matter further, Othello rashly jumps to the worst conclusions about his wife and believes every lie that Iago whispers into his ear.
the tragic hero
For Aristotle, the ideal protagonist is a man who is highly renowned and prosperous, but one who is not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment or frailty; a personage like Oedipus.
That is, the tragic hero should be like all of us – flawed and imperfect. This helps the audience sympathise with the protagonist’s downfall. The protagonist also had to be of high status so that his tragedy affected those around him and the fabric of society.
On one level, Othello fulfils all of Aristotle’s requirements for a tragic hero, as he is a character of noble status who falls from that position of power to one of shame because of his hamartia. Moreover the plot of Othello contains a powerful catharsis through its murderous climax and conclusion, and an anagnorisis when Othello realizes that he has been manipulated by Iago. However, Othello differs from the typical tragic hero because his family background would have been relatively unimportant in Europe – his race meant that he had to earn a noble position not by birth, but by merit (the social structure of the play can therefore be considered a meritocracy). Part of the play’s pathos derives from our awareness that Othello loses the status that he has worked and suffered for.
- “hot, hot and moist” “for here’s a young and sweating devil here”
o Sexual holding hand part page 80
Symbol of control. Not an affectionate or intimate moment
- 2 characters totally at odds
o Both talking about different things
“is hands, not hearts.” Gap hinting at infidelity
Gulling
iago to othello in act 4 scene 1
o When someone is tricked o If in essay, explain meaning briefly Represented differently in comedies and tragedies
othello’s death
o Anagnoisis
o Spent his life defending venice, now realiases he is the enemy
o Kills himself as loyalty for venice and for Desdemona
o Final lines show othello’s duplicity
§ Martial
§ Love
§ Lover and fighter, merged in speech
o Rhyming couplet as he dies
o “look on the tragic loading of this bed”
§ To audience as well
§ Iago as audience to tragedy
Imperative
metaphor of desdemona’s sheets
“I have laid
- those sheets you bade me on the bed.”
Should be a sign of sexual comfort but now Desdemona claiming the sheets for her death, her chasity/purity
act 4 scene 3
- There is an interesting contrast between how Act 4 appears in the 1622 Quarto and the 1623 Folio editions (both, of course, published posthumously as Shakespeare died in 1616). In Act 4 of the Quarto, the boy actor of Desdemona does not sing the haunting willow song and his/her dialogue with Emilia is reduced. Folio Emilia has much to say about wives who are prompted to adultery by their husbands’ neglect (18 lines not in the Quarto: 4.3.85-102). In the scene before this Folio Desdemona swears on her knees that she has never and will never love anyone except Othello (4.2.153-66): these 14 lines are not in the Quarto. In the play’s last scene, Folio Emilia is more vocal in helping to expose Iago. Her lines at 5.2.147-50 are not in the Quarto.Whilst both texts probably represent versions from different performances of the play, it is interesting to note that Emilia’s role and her relationship with Desdemona is far more overt in the Folio, where the plangently [resonating but sad] musical Desdemona gives the scene a slower tempo than in the Quarto counterpart. It is unclear whether these differences represent a cut to the longer original, or an addition: in either case it says something about responses to female agency in the early modern theatre.
- “barbary”
o Barbary coast - “and she died singing it. That song tonight Will not go from my mind.”
o Suggests she has suspicions of murder - “no unpin me here”
o Vulnerability - Desdemona singing
o Pathos - “song interrupted”
o Her life is interrupted - “nay that’s not next”
o Confused as actually thinking about how she’s going to die
o Paranoid - Emilia acts a counterpoint
- “wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?”
o very naïve - “no by this heavenly light; I might do’t as well i’th’dark”
o Christian imagery
o Idiom
o Grounds her imagery in reality
o Not in the day or light
o Pragmatic - “the world’s a huge thing; it is a great price for a small vice”
o Idiom
o Sex is transactional for emilia
o If gives her agency etc. - “but for all the whole world! Ud’s pity, who would not make her husband a cuckhold, to make him a monactarch? I should venture purgatory for ‘t”
o Recognition
o Has conditions wouldn’t do it for material things
o Can see a mutual benefit
o Cant imagine a world without a husband - “and pour treasures into foreign laps”
o Metaphor for semen
o Socially acceptable for men to be disloyal
o Men fear humiliation whilst women fear dearh (for cheating)
o “ - “have their palates for sweet and sour As husbands have”
o Breaks down diad between men and women
o Challenges male hypocrisy
o SHYLCOK - “Then let him use us well; else let them know the ills we do, their ills instruct us so.”
o Inserts justice
o Humorous
o Rhyming couplet - 2 female characters (usually voiceless)
o Good points but Shakespeare doesn’t say he agrees. Plenty of points in the play that supports otherwise
o Tentatively encourages feminism? Outside of the male gaze
o Discusses men without them being there.
o About to both get murdered in this room. - In the conversation which follows Desdemona’s and Emilia’s contrasting attitudes to men and to relationships are presented. Desdemona’s attitudes can be linked to an ideal of womanly virtue since she flatly rejects the idea of ever being unfaithful whereas Emilia claims only that she would not easily be unfaithful to a husband yet might do so for the whole world. Emilia comments that men and women are driven by the same desires and needs showing her rather worldly view of humanity whereas Desdemona’s innocence and virtue seems to transcend this. It seems that Shakespeare presents Desdemona in this way to lend greater poignancy to her situation when she is killed by Othello. Othello, Shakespeare seems to be saying, could not have been more wrong about his wife.It is worth analysing this speech as it seems a proto-feminist [the prefix ‘proto’ as in ‘prototype’ implies something that is original or early so here a proto-feminist is someone expressing seemingly expressing feminist views before the rise of the New Woman in the 1890s and First Wave Feminism of the early 20th Century] polemic [a polemic is a strong verbal or written attack on something]. Desdemona asks Emilia whether she would cuckhold [cheat on] Iago for ‘all the world’ (4.3.62) only for Emilia to clarify that whilst she would not do such a thing for a trifle, ‘The world’s a huge thing; it is a great price / For a small vice’. Yet more importantly, she then goes on to argue that ‘it is their husbands’ faults / If wives do fall’, noting that both men and women are defined by ‘frailty’ and that if men ‘err’ then women—having ‘affections, / Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have’—will natural ‘err’ as well. Note how Emilia shifts into verse for this speech. What might this imply?Think about this speech in the context of how both married women in the play are ultimately killed by their husbands. What might this say about Shakespeare’s presentation of misogyny in early modern society?
- End of act 4 – getting ready for bed & Beginning of act 5 – in bedchamber
o Bedchamber of the claustrophobic tense atmosphere of cyprus at the time - It is worth exploring Emilia as the voice of reason in the play and the irony that in 4.2 Othello just dismisses her, regarding her as a ‘simple bawd’ [a bawd was a female pimp, or brothel-keeper] with the obvious suggestion that she was Desdemona’s accomplice.
- Always consider the staging of play when writing your essays. Note here how Desdemona says she, ‘Upon my knees, what doth your speech impart?’ Think about the levels here and what they get across about masculine hegemonic [structural / societal] power.
“upon my knees,” stage direction
emilia in ending
Yet Emilia shows herself to be quite a forceful character when she speaks stridently in favour of her mistress’ honour:
He called her a whore. A beggar in his drink
Could not have laid such terms upon his callet. (Act 4.2.121; p161)
She shows that she is capable of being outraged and of showing the strength of her emotions when she says that a ‘halter’ or hangman’s noose should be all the ‘pardon’ that Othello should be shown for being so badly mistaken about Desdemona. Desdemona, for her own part, is arguably much weaker since she readily pardons Othello’s almost unforgivable excesses.
- Emilia feels a sense of outrage at the way in which Desdemona finds her virtue questioned:
Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
Her father, and her country, and her friends,
To be called a whore? (Act 4.2.124-6)
Again, is it worth comparing this with how Cassio and Iago speak of Bianca? And, indeed, how Iago speaks of Emilia? Note, for example, how in response to Emilia’s outburst he says ‘Speak within door’ annd dismisses her as a ‘fool’ who should ‘go to’. Think about how this ties in with his murder of her in the tragic denouement [conclusion] of the play - Shakespeare also portrays Emilia to be quite perceptive when she concludes that some ‘villainous knave’ must have poisoned Othello’s mind. The irony of the situation, however, is that she does not realise that the man she is speaking of is her own husband, Iago. Equally ironically, Desdemona turns to Iago as the man who might be her salvation:
O good Iago
What shall I do to win my lord again?
The audience once again sees Iago’s mendacity [untruthfulness] when he expresses the view that is must be ‘the business of state’ which has thrown Othello into such a foul humour. The reality of the situation is that he knows that it is his own actions which have unleashed Othello’s jealousy.
- “yes – ‘tis Emilia – by and by – shes dead”
o mid line shifts - page 130 caesuras
o mental state mirrored in the prosody - It is the second part of this final scene, however, when Emilia arrives that sees Othello appreciating that jealousy has been his tragic flaw. Emilia vehemently refuses to believe Othello’s accusations against Desdemona and begins to confront him with the evidence that what he believes to be the case is not in fact true. Reckless of her own personal safety when Othello touches his sword, she summons Lodovico and Gratiano to the scene who bring Cassio and Iago with them. As Othello tries to tell her that Iago had led him to believe that Desdemona was unfaithful, Emilia confronts her husband whose lies are no longer tenable once the different parties are assembled together. Emilia pays with her life for exposing Iago for what he is, but Iago’s actions in murdering her make his guilt quite unambiguous.
- Note Emilia’s imagery here, calling Desdemona ‘the more angel’ and Othello ‘the blacker devil’ (5.2.131-2). Her language echoes that of her husband in 1.1, of course, and yet here it is in the context of what he has done. Where does Shakespeare suggest our sympathies should lie? Do you think this has changed over time? Remember, one of the first critics of Shakespeare’s plays, Thomas Rymer, drew the conclusion in 1693 that the play had a simple moral to be ‘a caution to all Maidens of Quality how, without their Parents consent, they run away with Blackamoors’.
- “o the more angel she, And you the blacker devil”
o Racist imagery of angels and devils, alludes to blackface - “thou art rash as fire to say”
o She stops respecting Othello - Emilia argues with Othello unlike Desdemona
o Repetition of my husband, strange realisation - Emilia’s shift in address here is telling: note her use of the informal pronoun ‘thou’ to Othello in line 134. What might be the significance of this?
- Note the parallel between Emilia’s echoing of Othello’s revelation about Iago and Iago’s own manipulations of Othello in 3.3.
- “though I lost twenty lives. Help! Help! Ho, help!” repetition of villany
o More active than Desdemona - “O monstrous act!” montano
o Monster idea - emilia’s death page 137
o Swans meant to sing when they die
o Last lines are important
o Sings Desdemona song again - What is the effect of Emilia echoing Desdemona’s song with her dying words?
- “demand that demi-devil”
o Imagery again
- “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am”
o Heart is metonymic
§ Associations with love/emotions
· Sign of weakness or vulnerability
o Daws are like crows
o Rejecting our definitions or prepositions of what Iago is like.
o The theme of appearance and reality is presented early in the play when Iago states that he will not allow his ‘outward action’ to ‘demonstrate / The native act and figure of [his] heart’ because at such time he might as well:
…wear [his] heart upon his sleeve
For daws to peck at.
In making this admission, Iago seems to be pointing to the Janus-like [two-faced nature] of his personality which will rely on skilful dissembling to achieve his own ends. This metaphor of fearing jackdaws—that is, carrion birds—would peck at his heart were he to show any emotion is interesting. Why? What does it suggest? (Act 1.1.64)
o He then goes on to say ‘I am not what I am’. Copular verbs [special kinds of verb used to join an adjective or noun complement to a subject. Common examples are: be (is, am, are, was, were), appear, seem, look, sound, smell, taste, feel, become and get] are incredibly important in the play so take note when characters talk about what they ‘are’ or what they ‘seem’. Here this seems an inversion of God’s declaration in Exodus 3.14: ‘I am that I am’. What might this suggest about Iago? (Act 1.1.65)
“By Janus, I think no”
o Two faced god
o Referencing pagan and roman gods
o There is something revealing about Iago swearing on Janus, the Roman god of doorways, gates, and transitions, as he is usually depicted as having two faces.
Challenging religion
“Err, I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen I would change my humanity with a baboon”
o Zoomorphic
o Metaphor
o Guinea hens look like they are wearing loads of makeuo
§ Symbolising the makeup of a prostitute.
§ Iago characterises the marriage between Othello and Desdemona as:
A frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian. (Act 1.3.349)
Interestingly, the word ‘subtle’ that Iago uses here carried with it connotations of being sophisticated but in the rather negative way of having the capacity to deceive. It does, however, also draw upon stereotypical ideas about Venetian courtesans [high class prostitutes] whose appearance often made them indistinguishable from noble ladies of the court.
Lines 359 to end of Act 1 is the manipulation of Iago and Rodrigo. Parallels Iago and Othello.
o Power dynamic
o Rodrigo sends all his land to give money to Iago
o Soliloquay
§ Iago shows no scruples about exploiting Roderigo for his own financial gain when he says:
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. (Act 1.3.386; p43)
Soliloquys were traditionally spoken at the front of the stage in an area known as the platea [the front of the stage by the audience] which was distinct from the locus [the middle and back of the stage] where the action of the play took place. What is the effect of the inevitable intimacy we have with Iago, understanding him more than other figures in the play?
- “it is engender’d”
Like a plan being born
iago is most honest
ironic epithet
rodrigo’s death
- “O damn’d Iago! O inhuman dog!
o Zoomorphic metaphor
Roderigo’s dying comment—‘O damned Iago! O inhuman dog!’ (5.1.62)—sees him at last making an accurate appraisal of the man that has duped him all along and proved his nemesis. The all too convenient villainy of Iago’s actions here may remind audiences familiar with Macbeth, written a few years after Othello, of the devious and wicked nature of Macbeth’s actions in killing the two drunken guards outside King Duncan’s bed chamber as a means of simultaneously silencing them and making them appear responsible for King Duncan’s death. - The foil of Rodrigo, who is manipulated and killed before Othello
- Stereotype as moors as gullible, I n an anti-racist viewing is reduced due to the idea of a white nobleman being duped before Othello.
All women called strumpets
what quote suggests desdemona has suspicions of murder
“and she died singing it. That song tonight Will not go from my mind.”
“and pour treasures into foreign laps”
o Metaphor for semen
o Socially acceptable for men to be disloyal
o Men fear humiliation whilst women fear dearh (for cheating)
“wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?”
o very naïve
“no by this heavenly light; I might do’t as well i’th’dark”
o Christian imagery
o Idiom
o Grounds her imagery in reality
o Not in the day or light
o Pragmatic
quote indicating emilia’s pragmatics
“the world’s a huge thing; it is a great price for a small vice”
o Idiom
o Sex is transactional for emilia
o If gives her agency etc.
“but for all the whole world! Ud’s pity, who would not make her husband a cuckhold, to make him a monactarch? I should venture purgatory for ‘t”
o Recognition
o Has conditions wouldn’t do it for material things
o Can see a mutual benefit
o Cant imagine a world without a husband
pathos in desdemona and emilias scene
“no unpin me here”
o Vulnerability
Desdemona singing
o Pathos
“song interrupted”
o Her life is interrupted
“nay that’s not next”
o Confused as actually thinking about how she’s going to die
o Paranoid
give the quote in emilia and desdemonas scene that
o Breaks down diad between men and women
o Challenges male hypocrisy
o is reminiscent of shylocks speech in mov
“have their palates for sweet and sour As husbands have”
“Then let him use us well; else let them know the ills we do, their ills instruct us so.”
o Inserts justice
o Humorous
o Rhyming couplet
motifs in othello
sight and blindness
plants
animals
hell, demons, monsters
