Brabantio in Othello Flashcards
ACT 1 SCENE 1
He is a symbol of authority in Venice, the values he proposes eg racism and ownership of women makes up the fabric of the wider culture as a whole. The scenes involved with Brabantio are often comedic , Shakespeare uses him to help the audience like Iago- often Brabantio is performed as frantic and absurd in his outrage at the marriage, partly due to racism but also due to Desdemona undermining him without asking for consent. We are not supposed to take him seriously, w are exposed to his irrationality in order to emphasise Othello’s initial rationality. The emerging meritocracy represented by Othello threatens his his inherited wealth and status.
ACT 1 SCENE 2
Through Brabantio, Iago’s manipulation power is established, he is able to make Brabantio act extremely foolishly, attempting to fight Othello. He is perhaps a symbol of institutional classism, Othello is not of high enough status to marry Desdemona, this scene allows us to see how Othello is a man more measured and in control than the apparently superior Brabantio.
ACT 1 SCENE 3
Brabantio allows Desdemona to prove hr love for Othello, his disapproving attitude toward the interracial marriage actually shows him as an outlier in this scene. Here Brabantio’s character also emphasises Othello’s value in Venice, he has a vital purpose in the context of the Turkish fleet.
The key quote
‘If thou hast eyes to see, she has deceived her father and may thee’ arguably, this quote is where Iago draws his inspiration for his scheme, echoing this later in act 3 scene 3 ‘she did deceive her father marrying you’. Iago weaponizes the earlier statemen and frames Brabantio’s absurdity as rational.
