AO5

Question 1

L.P. Hartley

Answer 1

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’

Question 2

Ogude

Answer 2

Shakespeare may have ‘shared some of the deep-seated fears of his contemporaries about black people.’

Question 3

Jordan

Answer 3

The word ‘black’ in the 16th century was associated with ‘horrible, wicked’ and a ‘symbol of baseness and evil, a sign of danger and repulsion.’

Question 4

Elizabeth I

Answer 4

‘I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King.’

Question 5

Marilyn French

Answer 5

Believed that Othello exposes a deeply patriarchal society where women are defined by their relationships with men. (Feminist lens).

Question 6

Lisa Jardine

Answer 6

Believed that Desdemona is punished for her sexuality and independence; her murder is a restoration of male order. (Feminist lens).

Question 7

Leonard Tennenhouse

Answer 7

Believed that Desdemona’s death represents the containment of female power to preserve social and class hierarchy. (Marxist lens).

Question 8

Jonathan Dollimore

Answer 8

Believed that Othello reveals “the ideological contradictions of a repressive social order.” (Marxist lens).

Question 9

Janet Adelman

Answer 9

Believed that Othello’s identity crisis is triggered by Desdemona’s sexuality, leading to a collapse of self. (Psychoanalytic lens).

Question 10

Catherine Belsey

Answer 10

Believed that Iago acts out a crisis of selfhood through manipulation, showing the fractured subject. (Psychoanalytic lens).