Theme of Love

Question 1

What does H Fisher say about Love in Othello?

Answer 1

‘Romantic love is an obsession, you lose your sense of self … distort reality’

Question 2

What does C Phillips say about Love in Othello?

Answer 2

‘Desdemona is the love of a possession. she is a prize’

Question 3

What does M Scott say about Love in Othello?

Answer 3

‘Evidence for Lagos hatred for love is everywhere’

Question 4

What does FR Leavis describe Othello’s love as ?

Answer 4

‘A manifestation of his love for himself’

Question 5

How is love and hate presented?

Answer 5

-Domestic tragedy
-Binary love hate is central to the plays plot

Question 6

How is O and Ds love presented?

Answer 6

-Love as a healing agent
-Union established through shared lines and imagery

Question 7

How is Iagos view of love presented?

Answer 7

-Performance of fake love
-Replaces and subverts true love of others
-Weaponises love
-Cynical view - women should be kept within the domestic sphere and retain their role of mother and wife
-Love as lust

Question 8

How is love and race presented?

Answer 8

-Racially charged hatred for Othello is an antithesis to love
-Jacobean prejudices
-Salacious language
-naivety and blindness to love

Question 9

How is male homosocial love presented?

Answer 9

-culture of sexualisation
-Lust

Question 10

How does the idea of deception of women and the sexualisation link to Christianity. ?

Answer 10

the Fall - Eve reason for societies downfall

Question 11

Iago and Othello’s relationship?

Answer 11

-Homosocial
-Intimacy - marital and pervasion of marriage

Question 12

Female views of love?

Answer 12

-willow song
-Female space of protection
-Emilias cynical view of love
-Desdemonas passivity and naivety
-repress own desired

Question 13

Shakespeares mockery of courtly love ?

Answer 13

-Othello transforms into renaissance Petrarchan lover - original male view of love
-Mocks idea of courtship through Othello’s love for his militaristic and social image
-Cassio undermines Cassio’s courtly love - suggests courtly love is dying

Question 14

What does Ruth Vanita say about love?

Answer 14

• “women fall not morally but physically … felled by those morally ‘fallen’ husbands … by the male-dominated society which endorses the murder of supposedly fallen women’

Question 15

What does Virginia Vaughan say about love?

Answer 15

‘England’s preoccupation with cuckoldry demonstrates a basic male insecurity about women’s sexuality’

Question 16

What is the importance of the Setting being Cyprus?

Answer 16

Cyprus = birth place of Aphrodite - the goddess of love and sexual pleasure - which is ideal for Iagos view of love as it embodies his view

Question 17

‘Turn ….. Into ….. ‘ - Iago

Answer 17

Turn virtue into pitch
2.3

Question 18

‘To …. the moor’ -Iago

Answer 18

To love the moor
1.1

Question 19

‘I …. thee …… Desdemona’ -Othello

Answer 19

I love thee gentle Desdemona
1.2

Question 20

‘Let her ….. of me before her ……’ - Othello

Answer 20

Let her speak of me before her father
1.3

Question 21

‘The …… Desdemona’ -Cassio

Answer 21

The divine Desdemona
2.1

Question 22

‘she’s framed as ……..’ -Iago

Answer 22

She’s framed as fruitful
2.3

Question 23

‘Cuckold lives in …..’ - Iago

Answer 23

Cuckold lives in bliss
3.3

Question 24

‘She did ……. her father’ - Iago

Answer 24

She did deceive her father
3.3

Question 25

‘I nothing but to …… his …….’ - Emilia

Answer 25

I nothing but to please his fantasy
3.3

Question 26

What derogatory words are used to describe women?

Answer 26

Strumpet and wench

Question 27

‘In the due …….. of a sacred …’ -Iago

Answer 27

In the due reverence of a sacred vow
3.3

Question 28

‘I am your own ……’ -Iago

Answer 28

I am your own forever
3.3

Question 29

‘They are all but …….., and we are all but …. ; they eat us …….., and when they are done ….. us’ -Emilia

Answer 29

They are all but stomachs and we are all but food ; they eat us hungrily and when they are done they belch us
3.4

Question 30

‘I will marry her, out of her own …. and ………, not out of my ……..” - Mocking tone Cassio

Answer 30

I will marry her out of her own love and pleasures not out of my promise
4.1