Othello act 3 Flashcards
(23 cards)
T F G S W S’T
“This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t?” - Othello (S3)
- “fortification”: ironic because the threat is coming from inside, not out - an analogy for his relationship with Desy because he focuses on external threats to it (Cassio), not internal ones (himself)
H! I L N T
“Ha! I like not that.” - Iago (S3)
- General vibes: FIRST SEED OF DOUBT as if it was involuntary, and he didn’t mean to say it - must let Othello believe he thought of this himself - if he hadn’t said anything, Othello wouldn’t have thought anything of it (Machiavellian)
E W! P C M S / B I D L T A W I L T N / C I C A
“Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul / But I do love thee; and when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again.” - Othello (S3)
- “perdition”: Othello’s belief that without Desy’s love he would find himself condemned to hell - foreshadows when he commits suicide, in turn damning himself to hell, rather than live in a world without her
- “chaos” and “again” 1) reference to former, war-torn existence, and with Desy, he found himself a haven of peace 2) Jacobean belief that chaos was the state before creation and would be the state after the end of the world - implies Othello’s feeling that his very existence relies on the simultaneous existence of Desdemona and their love - comes to fruition in Othello’s suicide 3) could imply Othello always possessed the capacity for violence = tragic hero
“when” and “is”: certainty could suggest tragic inevitability - their love was doomed from this moment
O B M L O J / I I T G-E M W D M / T M I F O
“O beware, my lord, of jealousy: / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.” - Iago (S3)
- “beware”: plays the concerned friend - deceptive, manipulative etc
- “green eyed monster”: 1) green = envy 2) ‘personifies’ his jealousy turns it into a living beast - helps us to feel more sympathy for Othello later because its almost as if he was controlled by something greater than him echoed by Desy “heaven keep that monster from Othello’s mind” and Emilia “Tis a monster / Begot upon itself, born of itself”
- “mock”: torments the victim before it kills him - very much like Iago - here, he is really talking about himself
- “meat”: 1) dehumanises Otello - makes him seem weak - preys upon his masculinity to exacerbate his anger and frustration 2) “meat” is already dead - almost a sense of tragic inevitability that he will inevitably die as well
F S H A C M
“For she had eyes and chose me.” - Othello (S3)
- “eyes”: 1) she sees him for who he is - sees that he’s Black, that he’s older, that he is a man not used to peace and yet she loves him anyway 2) reference to sight as a theme - the idea that what someone sees is absolute is prevalent in the play - here we see the value Othello places in sight - slightly foreshadows how obsessed he becomes with “ocular proof’ because he needs something just as absolute to disprove her love
- “chose”: links to the fact that she “forsook so many noble matches, / Her father, and her country, and her friends” for Othello 1) height of their love 2) even more devastating when their relationship crumbles and he thinks her dishonest
L T Y W O H W W C / W Y E T: N J N S
“Look to your wife, observe her well with Cassio; / Wear your eyes thus: not jealous nor secure” - Iago (S3)
- “look”, “observe”, and “eyes”: references to theme of sight - Iago’s power lies in his ability to manipulate what people see and how they interpret it
- “your”: possessive 1) as if Othello is responsible for her and should have better control over her 2) reminds him that she, in effect, belongs to him so its up to him what he chooses to do with her = gives him permission to take drastic action
- “Cassio”: first time Iago names him in his implications against Desy - his obfuscatory remarks have riled Othello up till this point, so now, when Cassio is mentioned, all of that frustration is now directed at him - how Iago can manipulate Othello’s perceptions of people.
- “not jealous nor secure”: tells him to be impartial, which is ironic because he’s feeding him all this bias - this therefore implies that what Othello is currently feeling is a state of rationality - confuses his sense of self
S G I A A A M R / M B T L H
“She’s gone, I am abused, and my relief / must be to loathe her.” - Othello (S3, Sol1)
- “gone” and “am”: present tense verbs like everything’s been confirmed - it hasn’t and yet he’s acting like its true - echoes Iago’s “I will do as if surety” - beginning to share his traits
- “must”: doesn’t want to “loathe” her but feels he has no choice because otherwise it would be too painful (“relief”) - despite his jealousy and betrayal, he still loves her
I S B F O T H M I: / I N B I
“If she be false, O then heaven mocks itself; / I’ll not believe it.” - Othello (S3, Sol1)
- Staging: only says this after Desdemona enters - after SEEING her
- “if”: immediately less certain than he was at the start of the soliloquy
- “I’ll not believe it”: seeing her makes him change his mind - only in her absence can Iago manipulate him - their love is still strong
H P T H A F H A S D I
“He puts the handkerchief away from him, and she drops it.” - Stage directions (S3)
- “handkerchief”: 1) METAPHOR FOR THEIR RELATIONSHIP 2) it has strawberries on it - representative of the Virgin Mary = goodness, purity etc - the fact that Desy drops it shows that in Othello’s eyes, she’s fallen from this 3) he rejects her love and pushes her away
- “she drops it”: she’s blamed for it - negligence - even though “he” “puts [it] away from him”, she’s still at fault - representative of their relationship
M W H
“My wayward husband” - Emilia (S3, Sol1)
- “wayward”: she knows he’s prone to instability 1) as one of the few characters allowed into his private sphere, she sees things others do not 2) knows he’s immoral and yet helps him anyway - puts aside her moral compass to do so = submissive
T M A C W M P
“The Moor already changes with my poison” - Iago (S3, Sol5)
- “my poison”: “my” = sense of ownership and pride “poison” = Iago’s weapon of choice - how his influence is repeatedly described - like a poison, he takes his time, thoroughly corrupting everything he touches to bring about Othello’s demise
W A L A U T B / B L T M O S
“with a little act upon the blood, / Burn like the mines of sulphur.” - Iago (S3, Sol5)
- “little”: recognises it doesn’t take much to render Othello in this state - always has capacity (tragic hero) + hamartia of being too trusting
- “burn” and “blood”: intense agony in which Iago eventually renders Othello (emotionally)
- “mines of sulphur”: reference to hell - would condemn Othello to hell-like torture = evil and cruel - also foreshadows that his action will condemn Othello to actual hell too
O P
“Ocular proof” - Othello (S3)
- “ocular”: last shred of hope that it might be false - the theme that underscores the rest of the play
H N T W A F A D V I N B A B / A M O F
“Her name, that was as fresh as Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black / As mine own face.” - Othello (S3)
- “Dian”: goddess of virginity - despite being a progressive husband, he valued her purity just as everyone else did, and now she no longer embodies that
- “begrimed and black / as mine own face”: has internalised the belief that Blackness is a sign of moral corruption OR Iago’s manipulation has made him believe it, either way = insecurity (but not in a pathetic way like Iago)
K M H […] P U K […] L H L O M T […] S
“kiss me hard […] plucked up kisses […] laid his leg over my thigh […] sighed” - Iago (S3)
- 1) uses sensual imagery rather than sexual (“old black ram tupping your white ewe”) - they betrayed Othello emotionally as well as physically
- 2) sexual acts between 2 men makes it even more taboo which would anger and disgust Othello even more AND discredits Cassio as a man as well as as a friend
I T A T P
“I’ll tear her all to pieces!”
- “tear”: first time we see him act violently towards Desy = changing personality echoed by “I’ll tear her all to messes”, later
H K (Othello) H K (Iago)
“He kneels” - (S3)
- 1) religious devotion type vibes - links with “In the due reverence of a sacred vow / I here engage my words” as its bears resemblance to wedding vows - end of Othello’s marriage and the beginning of a new alliance - the devotion he once had to Desy, he now gives to Iago
1 2) the fact that Iago kneels too is interesting because he lowers himself to Othello’s level - like they’re in it together - ultimate trust and loyalty to him
N A N M L
“Now art thou my lieutenant.” - Othello (S3)
- MOMENT OF PERIPETEIA
- Othello has replaced both Cassio and Desdemona with Iago - he will love him and trust him and follow his lead
- Iago has gotten what he said he wanted in the first scene and yet still, he doesn’t stop - “enmesh them all” “all guiltless, meet reproach”
M N M I […] M O N S B / A J C A
“my noble Moor / Is […] made of no such baseness / As jealous creatures are” - Desdemona (S4)
- “my”: endearment, loves him - sympathy because we’ve just watched him denounce her
- “made” “baseness”: thinks that Othello’s very nature is above jealousy - has too much faith in him and doesn’t realise the danger she’s in
- “creatures”: return to the idea of jealousy being a thing/monster that corrupts and turns someone less than human
T A A B S A W A B F […] W T A F / T B U
“They are all but stomachs, and we all but food […] when they are full, / They belch us.” - Emilia (S4)
- “they” and “we”: clear separation and intrinsic difference between men and women, they could never have anything in common + “all” suggests she has an acute understanding of Jacobean gender roles
- “stomachs” + “all” + “when”: “stomachs” suggest that it is a carnal, natural, unconscious thing and that men are just hardwired to want to exploit women, “all” = there is no variation in this desire “when” implies a sense of inevitability that men will always, eventually get tired of the women in their lives and thar its only a matter of time = possibly a way of absolving herself of the guilt she feels at stealing Desy’s hanky by suggesting that what’s happening with Othello would’ve happened anyway
- VERY OBSERVANT and clearly hates men
I T M N J? […] N J T / C Y […] J S W N B A S […] T A M / B U I B O I
“Is this man not jealous? […] no jealous toy / Concerning you. […] jealous souls will not be answered so. […] ‘Tis a monster / Begot upon itself, born of itself.” - Emilia (S4)
- “jealous”: Emilia suggests that Othello is jealous at least 5 times in this whole scene - VERY observant - could also be a manifestation of her guilt at stealing the hanky as she tries to protect Desy from the consequences as best she can by trying to get her to see it before its too late “begot upon itself, born of itself”: it hasn’t been brought out by external forces, he’s just jealous because he’s jealous - not entirely correct but does begin the question of whether Othello always had the capacity
- “souls”: suggests its something intrinsic within Othello - is quite literally his fatal flaw - OBSERVANT +
- “monster”: evil, merciless and will destroy Othello
T I S T F A N F
“This is some token from a newer friend.” - Bianca (S4)
- reacts to the handkerchief with unabashed jealousy that Cassio immediately calls her out on “you are jealous” and refutes “I found it in my chamber” - unlike Othello and Desy, they have a very similar but far more frank conversation in which everything is resolved - tortures the audience because they see how easy it is - DIRECT COMPARISON
I T I N A N M W / T H H S M W
“I think it no addition, nor my wish / To have him see me womaned” - Cassio (S4)
- 1) embarrassed to be seen with her because she’s a prostitute
- 2) wants Othello to only see him in the public sphere - so intent on getting his job back - unlike Othello, he can separate public and private - only one who wins in the end
