Othello Flashcards
(36 cards)
What makes Othello’s position unusual?
He is one of the most important people in Venice, but he’s percieved as an outsider
He is both a military man and lover-husband
A trusted foreign servant (an outsider), wielding power on behalf of the Venetian state who seeks to become an equal member
A black man in a white world
What are Iago’s reasons (2) for hating Othello
Othello passed a promotion to Cassio instead of him
He thinks Othello slept with his wife
What does Iago do to Cassio to set his plot in motion
Gets him drunk
After losing his position, what does Iago suggest Cassio do?
Iago suggests getting Desdemona on his side
In the scene when Iago and Othello arrive, Cassio leaves embarrassed for his previous actions and does not feel up to facing Othello.
What does Iago do with this opportunity?
Iago takes this opportunity to plant a seed of doubt, pointing out that Cassio snuck away as Othello came near. Desdemona later tells Othello he should reconcile with Cassio. Iago takes this opportunity to plant another seed, this time suggesting that Desdemona might be cheating with Cassio.
- appearance vs reality
- Iago works with Othello’s weaknesses
Even though Iago asserted that he only suspects Desdemona is cheating with Cassio, Othello starts to_____
Doubt himself and have jealous suspicions of his own.
What is Othello ultimately taken down by?
Racism
Jealousy
A deadly idea - that Desdemona was cheating with Cassio –> causing a reaction so strong that it eclipsed all meaning
What makes Desdemona a complex character?
She desires to be with Othello as the perfect women. She does nto call Othello evil and is loyal to him to the end. She however does express, during a gossiping scene between herself and Emilia the looks and manour of Lodovico, revealing that she is not just a dumb, single minded individual. Additionally, she is able to challenge the sentiments of her father for her own sexual autonomy and challenge Othello’s allegations that she is unloyal; a strumpet, whore, etc. Thus she is able to stand for what she believes in whilst being crippled by her desire to live in a perfect world, not confronting Othello’s allegations straight after his allegations. It is only when Othello is about to kill her that she speaks out. She also does not betray Othello, in the scene where she wakes up after death, she tells Emilia that she killed herself and then dies.
She is also both half the wooer and the victim
What makes Emilia a complex character
Emilia is a complex character because of the duality of her interests. She wishes for more affection from Iago, who denies her this but remains loyal to him until this comes into conflict with her loyalty towards Desdemona. She picks up the handkerchief that she must know isn’t the best thing and gives it to Iago. After Desdemona is killed, she doesn’t defend her husband like Desdemona did, but rather speaks out which gets her killed (upholds moral values even when it risks her own life).
“No, I will speak as liberal as the north.
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.”
- Act 5 scene 2 when she is telling everyone what a criminal her husband Iago is and how he spun lies that resulted in the death of Desdemona.
Additionally, she educates Desdemona into the adultery that women perform, this Desdemona can’t believe. She thus offers a complex perspective beyond the foolish women that Iago sees her as.
What makes Othello a complex character?
Othello is unable to handle the compelxities of everyday life such as relationships. His language varies between extremes such “olpympus high”, as well as talk of death, heaven and hell.
“It gives me wonder great as my content
To see you here before me. O my soul’s joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakened death,
And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus high, and duck again as low
As hell’s from heaven! If it were now to die,
’Twere now to be most happy, for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate”
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Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul
But I do love thee! And when I love thee not
Chaos is come again.
- act 3 scene 3
“Here, Othello indicates the nature of his affection: either he loves her intensely and feels protective, or else he feels scorned and succumbs to an emotional “chaos.”” - Sparknotes
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He is also a complex character because of his corrupted sence of morality evident in Act 4 where plots Desdemona’s execution.
Othello - “Good, good! The justice of it pleases; very good”
In the context of plotting the kill with Iago, Othello exemplifies how he believes violence will bring justice. He believes he is doing the right thing but yet feels a sense of guilt in the process. He does not change his ways, revealing how he is stubborn in his will.
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars.
It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore
Should I repent me. But once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have plucked the
rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It needs must wither. I’ll smell it on the tree.
O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! He kisses her. One
more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee
And love thee after. One more, and this the last.
(He kisses her)
So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears. This sorrow’s heavenly:
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
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Set you down this,
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog
And smote him thus. (V.ii.341-354)
“At the same time, however, by killing himself as he is describing the killing of a Turk, Othello identifies himself with those who pose a military—and, according to some, a psychological—threat to Venice, acknowledging in the most powerful and awful way the fact that he is and will remain very much an outsider. His suicide is a kind of martyrdom, a last act of service to the state, as he kills the only foe he has left to conquer: himself.” - Sparknotes
- Othello is both the defender and enemy of Venitian society
What is evidence of Othello’s treatment in the play
He is reduced to race, referred to as, “the moor”
She loved me for the dangers I had past and I loved her for she did pity them
Othello’s statement in the early scenes of the play calls into question________ and calls into question __________
The soundness of the relationship’s foundation
whether Desdemona has fallen in love with the story or Othello
What is Othello’s major flaw?
He puts too much trust in the wrong people (Iago), and too little trust in those he should (Desdemona)
When does Iago start planting seeds of doubt in Othello’s mind (when is the turning point?)
Act 3 scene 3
this is a pivitol moment
Othello’s decline
Psychological torment
His headache may just be a cover for the torment
Find one piece of evidence for Othello’s change in language (more like Iago)
Act 3 scene 3
O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad
And live upon the vapor of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses.
What does Iago warn Othello of in act 3 scene 3? What is ironic about this?
Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
- Ironic: Iago is pushing it on Othello, who now has something to be jealous of.
Find an example of the significance of reputation
act 2 scene 3; after Cassio has fought with Roderigo
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have
lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation!
Find and exmple of Othello not immediately sucumbing to the idea of his wife cheating on him with Cassio
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago,
I’ll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this:
Away at once with love or jealousy.
When does Othello start to doubt Desdemona’s loyalty?
Act 3 scene 3
This fellow’s of exceeding honesty
And knows all quantities, with a learnèd spirit,
Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have, or for I am declined
Into the vale of years—yet that’s not much—
She’s gone, I am abused, and my relief
Must be to loathe her. Oh, curse of marriage
That we can call these delicate creatures ours
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad
And live upon the vapor of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses. Yet ’tis the plague to great ones,
Prerogatived are they less than the base.
‘Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.
Even then this forkèd plague is fated to us
When we do quicken. Look where she comes.
How has Othello’s doubt manifested in his first interaction with Desdemona after Iago planted his seed of doubt?
Act 3 scene 3
I have a pain upon my forehead, here.
- the manifestation of his paranoia and stress
- he tells Desdemona it is a pain in his forhead when she noticies he isn’t like himself (seemingly unwell)
When Emilia gives Iago the handkershief that Desdemona loves dearly what questions does this raise?
Does she do this out of jealousy: upperclass Desdemona who has a husband who lover her unlike her position
Or is it her desire to please her husband Iago?
How does Othello’s inability to manage the duality of his life as a lover and military strategist/commander manifest?
His decisiveness leads him to seek ocular proof and then when he is presented with that proof his decision to pursue a bloody course is made swiftly.
What evidence is there for Emilia’s realistic outlook on male-female relationships based on her own experience?
Act 3 scene 4
Tis not a year or two shows us a man
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food:
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.
What makes Iago a complex character?
Iago is a complex character because of his ability to twist the minds of others for his own will which he himself has not genuine justification for. Throughout the work, Shakespear crafts Iago as a machiavellina figure who wishes for the demise of anyone he doesn’t like, which leads him onto basing his hatred off of suspicions such as Othello having slept with his wife. This conclusion could also (in another interpretation), be derived from his mysogenistic mistrust of women in general. Though he does mention Desdemona is a beauty. In this sense, Cassio and Desdemona make him seem ugly by comparison which he seeks to destroy.
act 5 scene 1
Iago speaking: He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly.
