Othello Critics Flashcards
(25 cards)
“Othello lives because it exposes something within us, something we cannot-or do not want to-face”
Bonnie Greer
(women)”are tragically acted upon rather than being the mistresses of their own fates”
Nigel Wheale
“jealousy is destroying him. It is this trait of his nature that undermines his life. Not racism, although that plays a part. Not the unmotivated hatred of Iago, although that plays a part too”
Bonnie Greer
“what hurts Othello far more than losing Desdamona is losing the equanimity he needs to do his job”
Andrew McCulloch
“a searing critique of racial and sexual injustice, more powerful now in the 21st century”
Kiernan Ryan
“though he initiate and engineers it’s catastrophe, Iago is not the fundamental or sole cause of the tragedy,which could plainly have erupted in a similar form for the same reasons without his intervention”
Kiernan Ryan
“he is a stranger, a man of alien race”
Helen Gardener
“like most of Iago’s imagined stories, is produced by a sexual imagination and fuelled by sexual jealousy”
Bernard O’Keefe
“Othello is predisposed to believing (Iago’s) pronouncements about the inherent duplicity of women”
Ania Loomba
“‘the Moor’ a term both de-personalising and distancing (i.e. not one of us), if not quite openly offensive or degrading”
Richard Lees
“the horrific thing about Iago…is his utter lack of humanity”
Simon Bubb
“the really disturbing thing about Iago is not that he’s an unfathomable psychopath, but that he’s pathologically normal and theatrically irresistible”
Kiernan Ryan
“Othello does love Desdamona and he is fully responsible for her death”
Andrew McCulloch
“Othello’s tragic flaw-his love of his own ‘pride and purposes’”
Andrew McCulloch
“it is this sense of ‘otherness’, of belonging yet also being marginalised, that Iago is able to exploit”
Bernard O’Keefe
“a ‘colour blind’ or racially neutral response is impossible”
Emma Smith
(Iago’s)”ability to use language better than anyone else”
Simon Bubb
“women seem to be either subhuman (Bianca) or superhuman (Desdamona) most of the time. Emilia does counter this opinion”
Sarah Robertson
“making us realise the frailty and vulnerability of human life”
Nigel Wheale
(tragedy provokes)”the affects of admiration and commiseration”(and so demonstrates)”the uncertainty of this world”
Helen Gardener
“Othello in is his own magnanimous way, is egotistic”
F.R. Leavis
“naturally modest but fully conscious of his worth”
A.C. Bradley
“what sets him apart most is his solitariness”
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Helen Gardener
“Othello seems to be trying excessively hard to prove he can make…elaborate speeches in their language which ironically has the effect of further distancing him from the other characters”
Marion Cox
