act 1 scene 3

Question 1

senator:

‘but though they jump not on a just account— as in these cases, where the aim reports tis oft with difference’

Answer 1

no one knows where the attacks came from

echoes the plots against elizabeth i

paranoia present in england is reflected here

Question 2

senator:

‘tis a pageant to keep as in false gaze’

Answer 2

mirrors iago’s scheming behaviours

he puts on a show to mask the truth

iago has been running a ‘pageant’ manipulating both othello and roderigo to conflicts, all to advance himself.

Question 3

senator:

‘valiant moor’

Answer 3

epithet

not heard of othello’s elopement with desdemona, nor his subsequent clash with brabantio. to them, he is still the prized general and the venetians’ best chance to repel the turks

race defines identity

gives him height to fall from

Question 4

brabantio:

‘my particular grief is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature’

Answer 4

over bearing nature

very dramatic - juxtaposes the troubles of war with his own domestic troubles

lots of grief - emotions are consuming him

reveals the extent of racism in society

Question 5

senators:

‘dead’

brabantio:

‘ay, to me’

Answer 5

extremely racist

disowned desdemona to a certain extent

scandalous

shows both the possessive view of women as commodities, and the way in which interracial marriage was viewed

Question 6

brabantio:

‘for nature so preposterously to err’

Answer 6

unnatural - black and white marriage

great chain of being

desdemona has been cursed

Question 7

brabantio:

‘to fall in love with what she feared to look on?

Answer 7

despite ethnicity, desdemona falls in love with othello - breaking racial stereotypes

did she fear to look on him because of his skin colour, his class or his upbringing?

not venetian

pseudo-rhetorical question, because brabantio honestly thinks that desdemona wouldn’t fall in love with othello.

Question 8

othello:

‘send for the lady to the sagittary’

Answer 8

giving desdemona freedom of speech

imperative verb - asserting power - black race was inferior

subverting stereotypes

Question 9

othello:

‘her father loved me, oft invited me, still questioned me the story of my life’

Answer 9

brabantio invited othello into his home to tell stories about the war

fascinated and repelled - dual way in which moors were seen

Question 10

othello:

‘would desdemona seriously incline: but still the house-affairs would draw her thence: which ever as she could with haste dispatch, she’d come again, and with a greedy ear devour up my discourse:

Answer 10

underlying sense of innocence is present here - no seduction or witchcraft or sexual passion – the love beginning to blossom is simply a product of othello’s stories, and desdemona’s eagerness to listen to them.

the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach - food

links to sex, desire and cravings

Question 11

othello:

‘i should but teach him how to tell my story’

Answer 11

desdemona wooed him

challenging stereotypes

progressive relationships - shakespeare advocating

Question 12

duke:

‘men do their broken weapons rather than use their hands’

Answer 12

in a fight, use a broken gun or sword rather than fists

not a perfect marriage - run without

Question 13

desdemona:

’ i am hitherto your daughter. but here’s my husband’

Answer 13

caesura - made her decision

frowned upon in elizabethan society

assertive and confident - women usually hysterical

prevalence of deep patriarchal power structures that women interlise, seeing themselves as products of ownership

still respectful of her father

Question 14

duke:

‘the turk with a most mighty preparation makes for cyprus. othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you’

Answer 14

prose

specifics of war - dark things happened

othello needed to combat the turks - well respected

reflects racial views at the time

Question 15

desdemona:

‘nor i; i would not there reside, to put my father in impatient thoughts ‘by being in his eye’

Answer 15

challenging stereotypes - not supposed to have a voice

bold

‘impatient’ suggests brabantio rushes too quickly into judging othello based off the stereotypes in society of inter-racial marriage and native africans as oppose to looking at their powerful natural love for one another.

desdemona is criticising her father for doing so and not giving othello a chance without basing his views and opinions off society

seems to love her father and care for his wellbeing or she’s very good at being politically correct and politely saying she doesn’t want to be around him.

Question 16

othello:

’ to please the palate of my appetite, nor to comply with heat the young affects in my distinct and proper satisfaction, but to be free and bounteous to her mind’

Answer 16

he doesn’t want her for his own personal reasons, rather he wants to enrich her experience because that’s what she wants

progressive relationship

let her go - its what she wants

Question 17

brabantio:

‘look to her moor if thou hast eyes to see: she has deceived her father and may thee’

Answer 17

once a cheater always a cheater

foreshadowing the eventual (alleged) deception

reminds othello that he is a moor

reminding othello that in terms of his colour and his religion, he is unworthy of desdemona

a persistent idea that iago also later manipulates to convince othello that desdemona’s love for him is only a fleeting fancy.

Question 18

roderigo:

‘it is silliness to live, when to live is torment: and then we have a prescription to die, when death is our physician’

Answer 18

prose - roderigo is losing rationality

elizabethans believed in reason over passion

hyperbolic metaphor, being melodramatic could be relating to othello’s suicide at the end of the play. also ironic because they make themselves suffer, it isn’t a product of life as they allow this to happen to themselves

could be foreshadowing roderigo’s demise and a metaphor showing iago is the physician, prescribing roderigo’s actions - seemingly acting to people’s aid but corrupting them from the inside outward

Question 19

iago:

’ tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. our bodies our gardens to which our wills are gardeners’

Answer 19

love is not virtue - we control who we are

we tend to our bodies like gardens

show something about his perception of desdemona and matters of love - impatient and quick to dispel roderigo’s negativity.

metaphor of the body as a garden that can be tended to, adapted and changed by one’s will and intent, is evocative here to explain iago’s actions and his ideas about emotions and control.

reason must dominate passions and ‘cool our raging motions’ in life - love is no different to any other emotion

iago is unromantic and considers one shouldn’t be spurred on by matters of the heart.

cleverly manipulates roderigo through devilish similes such as ‘luscious as locusts’ and acrimoniously derides that desdemona will be put off othello ‘when she is sated with his body’