Emilia/Emilia and Desdemona

Question 1

how does Emilia’s relationship parallel Desdemona’s

Answer 1

‘my heart’s subdued to the very quality of my lord’ versus ‘I nothing but to please his fantasy’
- both are pawns of Iago’s plan
- her unhappy marriage (Iago calls her ‘foolish’ and says she talks ‘too much’) juxtaposes with Desdemona’s blissful union/nascent love - acts as a prophesy for how O and D’s relationship will sour.
- Emilia’s grounded realism and cycnicsm contrasts with D’s youthful naivity ‘they are all but stomachs and we are all but food; they eat us hungrily and when they are full, they belch us’

Question 2

What does Emilia say to Othello

Answer 2

‘I durst my lord, to wager she is honest, lay down my soul at stake’
- she bravely asserts ‘the Moor hath killed my mistress’

Question 3

their sorroral bond

Answer 3

• illustrates the importance of female solidarity in a patriarchal society
• it is the only one to endure until the end - making it the purest and the strongest - transcending rank
• Emilia is essentially a woman willing to risk her reputation to stick up for her friend - female solidarity transcends and overpowers all loyalties and duties demanded of women in a patriarchal society

Question 4

Significance of their deaths

Answer 4

• their unerring bond is symbolised in death
• when Emilia is stabbed by Iago, she tells the onlookers: ‘lay me by my mistress’s side’, subverting the tradition of husband and wife being buried together
• her decision to lie next to desdemona in death for eternity symbolises her commitment to her over her husband. this liberates them both from martial violence

Question 5

Emilia’s dying words

Answer 5

’ she was chaste, she loved thee, cruel Moor… as I speak true, so speaking think, I die’
- female solidarity as the whole and uncorrupted truth
- the cost of female solidarity in the face of male violence is death
- female friendship is ultimately the strongest

Question 6

Emilia advocates for female sexuality

Answer 6

• ‘say that they slack their duties and pour our treasures into foreign laps’ - portraying husbands duty to satisfy their wives, empowering women by entitling them to their own sexuality

Question 7

Emilia’s approach to cuckoldry

Answer 7

• it is pragmatic and in contrast make Othello and iago look hysterical - highlighting how cuckoldry/reputation is an irrational fear generated by rumour and perception.
• ‘it is a great price for a small vice’

Question 8

Emilia as dependent

Answer 8

• Emilia’s character represents the challenge of an intellectually independent but socially dependent woman, and she suffers for this
• she doesn’t have the social standing which D. has which would give her the leverages of freedom to leave a relationship
• therefore she is forced to act in a wa which prioritises survival over her valures

Question 9

Emilia and the handkerchief

Answer 9

• when she picks up the handkerchief she is faced with conflicting loyalties, indulge her husband and steal it, or obey her professional duty and return it to Desdemona
• ‘I am glad I have found this napkin. This was her first remembrance from the Moor. My wayward husband has a hundred times wooed me to steal it. But she so loves the token’
• a moral conflict between opportunity to please her husband - the conjunction ‘but’ effect this

Question 10

Syntactical chiasmus

Answer 10

• evokes a sense of someone’s hands being tied in hostage, a lack of choice, a knotted bind
• ‘Heaven knows, not I. I nothing but to please his fantasy’