Othello key quotes analysed

A1S1 Iago: "Sblood"

gods blood used as a swearword which is Iago's first word which already sets up his crude and vulgar nature as its blasphemous and how he uses something that originally is sacred to be negative
Reoccurring thing of Iago a later on he uses 'zounds'

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A1S1 Iago: "I know my price I am worth no worse a place"

Iago's hubristic nature exposed and the repeated first person pronoun 'I' shows that Iago's main concern is regarding his own pride and egotism

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A1S1 Iago: "I am not what I am"

given warning of his dual nature which he is unapologetic for. biblical allusion from Exodus to god says ' I am who I am' suggesting Iago is opposing natural order which presents him as an embodiment of evil therefore marking him as the clear antagonist

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A1S1 Iago: "an old black ram is tupping your white ewe!"

metaphor for Desdemona's and Othello's relationship. use of animalistic imagery dehumanises and mostly degrades Othello, paired with the contrasting imagery of black and white highlights the social divide between then due to race. 'tupping' verb is vulgar

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A1S1 Iago: "the devil will make a grandsire of you."

demonisation of Othello as he is aligned with evil and the devil
Elizabethan christians (contemporaries) would have associated the colour black with the devil unlike modern audience and today people associate red with the devil

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A1S1 Iago: "you'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse"

Continuous use of animalistic language this bestial imagery is tied with Othello showcasing Elizabethan stereotypes on race. Iago and Rodrigo take upon contemporary practice of charivari - a custom where noise was made outside a couples house on wedding

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A1S2 Brabantio: "foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter?"

verb 'stowed' implies Desdemona is some cargo as it objectifies her. Accusation against Othello vilifying him

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A1S2 Brabantio: "thou hast practised on her with foul charms, Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals"

claims that Othello has "enchanted" Desdemona and put her in "chains of magic" accusing him of witchcraft which is very common racial stereotype while portraying Desdemona as this passive victim

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A1S3 Duke: "Valiant Othello"

Othello recognised and even kept in high regard by a figure of power and authority subverts of what's the norm through the adjective of 'valiant' and depicts him as the tragic hero as he posses those noble traits

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A1S3 Othello:"rude am I in my speech"

Othello's internalisation of racial discrimination from society or Sprezzatura- nonchalant to his noble traits pretending to be humble presents him as above socially ingrained pre determined expectations as he challenges them

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A1S3 Othello: "with a greedy ear devour up my discourse"

the use of personified ear, Desdemona is presented as an unconventional woman as she's initiating interest and having that desire for Othello first rather than being coy and passive. the verb 'devour' reveals her agency as a woman

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A1S3 Othello: "she loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them. This is the only witchcraft I have used."

revealing the strength of their bond and relationship - seems very simplistic but it's true love as they choose each other on their own accord and is reciprocated through the syntactic parallelism. Denying Brabantio's allegations Othello also challenging

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A1S3 Desdemona:"I do perceive here a divided duty"
"to you I am bound for life and education"

Acknowledging that she belongs to her father (patriarchal society) however she also rejects this claim her father has over her publicly female defiance deepening her characterisation as an unconventional female. while Desdemona subvert patriarchal expecta

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A1S3 Brabantio:"I had rather to adopt a child than get it."

Brabantio represents traditional views here he is showing racist prejudice and fear of Miscegenation which leads to him wanting to disassociate with Desdemona as there's an implication that in being with him, she has been tainted.

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A1S3 Brabantio: "look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see she has deceived her father and may thee"

the use of the conditional 'if' sets a tone of questionability and mockery of Othello and his hamartia by Brabantio. this is the start of planting doubt in Othello's mind on Desdemona's fidelity. also exposes the typical sexist view that women are deceitf

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A1S3 Iago: "to abuse Othello's ears"
"The moor is of a free and open nature, that thinks men honest"

in his soliloquy Iago starts to plot against the tragic hero as a Machiavellian. he plans to exploit his trusting nature (hamartia) to get close to him and then corrupt it. as a military man it's important to trust your men however you have to be cautious

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A1S3 Iago:"hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light"

the metaphorical product of Iago's manipulation is described to be 'monstrous' its deformed and a corrupted plot that causes the tragedy. the positioning of 'hell and night' as midwives that will aid the birth further links Iago and his plan to the devil.

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A2S1: a seaport in Cyprus

there's a change in setting we have moved away from the civility and peace of Venice and into Cyprus which is closer to African Muslim areas which venetians feared and this creates a sense of threat and danger. however, Aphrodite the goddess of love

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A2S1 Cassio: "The divine Desdemona."
"Our great captain's captain"
"The riches of the ship is come on shore!"

- elevated through the alliteration and the adjective 'divine' deifies her as she is aligned with god
- idea that she's in charge within the relationship and she's above Othello empowers her as it breaks typical conventions of a heterosexual couple

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A2S1 Iago: "you rise to play and go to bed to work."

the verb 'play' undermines the domestic work women of that time would be expected to do which even today isn't acknowledge or appreciated. furthermore it infantilises them as playing is typically associated with children

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A2S1 Othello: "O my fair warrior!"
Desdemona: "my dear Othello!"

elevation of Desdemona through possessive and endearments but also the reciprocity of their love and exclamation speaking in syntactic parallelism symbolic of passion and equality within their relationship.

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A2S1 Iago: "her eye must be fed and what delight shall she have to look on the devil?"

'fed' feeds into the repeated motif of consumption Shakespeare uses to amplify emotions like greed.
constant alignment of Othello to the devil like Iago perhaps they become foil characters of each other

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A2S3 Cassio :"I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking."

a vulnerability of Cassio that Iago uses and exploits to ruin his reputation and hurt Othello as he would fall out with Cassio all happens at night the night is a catalyst for Iago's plan

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A2S3 Othello: "for Christian shame put by this barbarous brawl"

plosive signifies Othello's aggression at the situation and this marks the small and subtle start to his change as later he completely transmogrifies to become irrationally violent

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A2S3 Cassio: "reputation, reputation, reputation! O I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial."

importance of reputation during the renaissance.
interjection, repetition and exclamatory exposes the anxiety and amplifies the grief Cassio feels as now he is ruined

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A2S3 Iago: "our general's wife is now the general"

continuous acknowledgement that Desdemona is controlling Othello which emasculates Othello as it doesn't fit within the rules of gender performativity and the second sex as their dynamic in their relationship is unconventional

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A2S3 Iago: "she's framed as fruitful as the free elements."

fricative alliteration shows Iago's anger at Desdemona flirtatious 'fruitful' nature. her femininity is link with imagery of nature. simile- her generous spirit is like the abundance in nature.

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A2S3 Iago:"even as her appetite shall play the god with his weak function"

Vilification of Desdemona through the emasculation of Othello femme fatale. Othello is reduced suggested that his passion for Desdemona weakens him. des unconventional woman appetite might refer to her sexual desire.

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A2S3 Iago: "and her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all."

Iago uses two ill-matched metaphors. He initially wants to “turn her virtue into pitch,” which is a sticky, black, tar-like substance. But in mid-sentence Iago shifts from sticky pitch to the image of a web in which he can ensnare all of his enemies.

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A3S1 clown :"to hear music, the general does not greatly care"

traditionally music was played in the morning after newly weds spent a night and Othello rejects this tradition of Desdemona alternatively music might symbolise the truth and exposes Othello's ignorance and disregard.

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A3S3 Iago:"men should be what they seem"

imperative modal ironic for Iago to advice that men should subvert social expectations. alternatively, might be highlighting his fear of how fragile his power is trying to re-establish the power as an educator.

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A3S3 Iago:" O beware, my lord, of jealousy it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on."

anthropomorphism- offers a warning to Othello in personifying jealousy, and the verb 'feeds' projects an image of a predator as jealousy is a sin and adds to the motif of overconsumption dangers of passionate emotions.

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A3S3 Iago: "the moor already changes with my poison"
"Burn like the mines of sulphur."

- Iago's acknowledgment of his corruption caused Othello's transmogrification
-verb 'burn' and the highly flammable substance of sulphur brings imagery of fire and hell aggression and pain.

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A3S3 Othello: "villain be sure thou prove my love a whore .... thou hadst been better have been born a dog".

- Iago constantly gets referred to as a dog. plosive alliteration highlights how Othello's irrationality and violence start to over consume him

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A3S3 Othello: "ill tear her all to pieces! "

Othello starts to succumb to hegemonic masculinity expectations this violences start to portray him as this dangerous predator a typical view placed upon coloured men at the time.

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A3S3 Iago: "a handkerchief spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?"

Iago manipulates the handkerchief so that Othello comes to see it as a symbol of Desdemona's faith and chastity. By taking possession of it, he is able to convert it into evidence of her infidelity.

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handkerchief strawberries symbolic

The pattern of strawberries (dyed with virgins’ blood) on a white background strongly suggests the bloodstains left on the sheets on a virgin’s wedding night, so the handkerchief implicitly suggests a guarantee of virginity as well as fidelity.

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A3S3 Othello: "O, blood, blood, blood!"
"Damn her, lewd minx O damn her damn her!"

use of plosive alliteration marks Othello's transmogrified by Iago towards violences as he now believes Iago's lies on Desdemona as she's seen as a lewd minx. to be cuckolded was a greatest shame.

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A3S4 Othello: "Lend me thy handkerchief"
"That handkerchief did an Egyptian to my mother give."
"The handkerchief!"

significance of the handkerchief heightened as it also represents Othello's extensive pride on his heritage, repetition of it shows how he becomes fixated on it and their love becomes materialised through it.

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A3S4 Emilia: "They are all but stomachs and we all but food they eat us hungerly and when they are full they belch us "

metaphor for how men don't value women they are just there for men's sexual gratification. the noun 'food' however implies how vital women are men the 'stomachs' as without them the human body won't be able to get vitamins. Emilia's emerges as a proto fem

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A3S4 Cassio: "sweet Bianca"
"Go to woman! throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth ... you are jealous now"

the mirroring to "sweet Desdemona" Bianca is Cassio's jealous lover and becomes a foil character of Desdemona and see how Cassio treats them differently and reflects class hierarchy prejudice. she is a pawn for men to manipulate.

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A3S4 Bianca: "why, whose is it?"

Bianca also mirrors Othello's jealousy and highlights the controversial significance the handkerchief evokes. also her questioning links to that of Desdemona's previously "is't possible? ... why do you speak so startingly and rash?"

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A3S4 Cassio: "I'd have it copied"

implication that Othello's exotic ethnicity and heritage is something that can be replicated devalues Othello's individualism and the pride he has for it. demonstrates Eurocentric society's ignorant disregard and misunderstanding of oriental culture.

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A4S1 Othello :"As doth the raven over the infected house, boding to all -he had my handkerchief."

raven perceived as harbinger of bad luck and death, its symbolic of doom approaching Othello and reinforce idea of lost control as fate rather than individual choice now dominates. paired with motif of infection echoes Othello's inevitable peripeteia.

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A4S1 Othello: "zounds, that's fulsome! handkerchief- confessions- handkerchief!"

linguistic convergence as Othello starts to mirror Iago's language when going into emotional distress as Iago uses 'zounds' in a1s1 and Othello shifts from his blank verses to prose which demonstrates the corruptive nature of Iago's influence.

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A4S1 Iago: "he foams at the mouth and breaks out to savage madness"

Othello's epileptic fit marks how he has been transmogrified and now completely loss control and rationality. the sight of the tragic hero like this indicates how far fallen from nobility and achievements from A1

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A4S1 Cassio: "I marry her? what, a customer?"
"tis such another fitchew"

Despite her name meaning white which has connotations of innocence and purity, she's involved in prostitute which makes her unmarriageable and therefore Bianca is a vulnerable character as she a woman and economically relies on men

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A4S1 Othello :"A fine woman, a fair woman, a sweet woman!"

exclamatory and the use of a syndetic listing shows Othello's conflicting state as anger and love become intertwined foreshadows him murdering her out of over consumption of love and anger

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A4S1 Othello :"Ay let her rot and perish and be damned tonight for she shall not live. my heart is turned to stone"

use of debased and destructively violent language illustrates the extent of his anger from love Shakespeare exposes how fickle human emotions are that lead to tragedy. stone marks the permanents of this reversal and change in Othello.

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A4S1 Othello: "fire and brimstone"

biblical reference to the eternal fire of hell which is the greatest punishment. symbolic of anger and violence it also catches and spreads becomes a dangerous threat.

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A4S1 Othello :"Devil! (he strikes her)"
"o devil, devil!"
Lodovico: "my lord this would not be believed in Venice"

resorting to physical violence which in Shakespearean England was frowned upon (domestic violence) by the elites of society especially in public. past Othello production Laurence Olivier used black face and the paint would mark Desdemona.

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A4S1 Othello: "mistress!"

no more "gentle Desdemona" Othello becomes physically and verbally abusive towards his wife now and calls her the devil too which is ironic as Briggs said that the colour black was associated with evil ding and the devil.

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A4S2 Emilia :"never my lord."
"she is honest, lay down my soul at stake"

undying loyalty for her mistress exposes the strength of their sororal bond as she protects and defends Desdemona. goes against the patriarch through repetitive negative negations and the imperative "remove your thought".

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A4S2 Othello:"I took you for that cunning whore of Venice that married with Othello"

stereotype of women of Venice are disloyal as there was high levels of prostitution, he judges her for her background internalised insecurity and talks in third person as he wants to distance himself from her.

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A4S3 Desdemona:" if I do die before thee, prithee shroud me in one of those same sheets"

foreshadowing of Desdemona's death through the verb 'shroud' means to wrap a dead person up in a cloth - her nonchalant attitude suggests how she's accepted this fate knowing that in leaving her husband she'd be left economically unstable.

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A4S3:"song of willow"

Desdemona avoidance of direct confrontation and protecting Othello's reputation by disguising her feelings in a median of a song she is silenced. willow's overreaching leaves acts as protection and the female is aligned to nature.

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A4S3 Emilia: "but I do think it is their husbands' faults if wives do fall"

proto feminist speech Emilia and Desdemona are together in private a safe environment for them to voice controversial ideas building on those intimate close sororal bonds suggestion that friendships are stronger than romantic relationship.

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A4S3 Emilia: "and have we not affections desires for sport and frailty as men have? then let them use us well"

before the 20th century women weren't seen to have sexual desire. Emilia humanises females which establishes equality. rhetorical question is a direct challenge of the patriarch. collective pronoun 'we' plight of women and 'them' vs 'us' illustrates divid

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A5S1: Night. A street
Enter IAGO and RODERIGO

cyclical structure as A1 opened similarly implying how the tragedy was inevitable. The night and dark disorientates audience and Iago uses it as concealment grants him power as uncertainty and confusion arise among the characters too.

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A5S1 Iago: "it makes us, or it mars us"

collective pronoun 'us' constant giving of false security 'I'll be at thy elbow.' syntactic parallelism reminds us of Iago's duality and the fact he mentions the success first suggests of his hubristic nature. also highlights the importance of the scene.

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A5S1 Iago: "I have rubbed this young quat almost of sense, and he grows angry."

diminishing Roderigo in referring him to a pimple which is filled with puss suggesting how Iago corrupts as he exerts his influence as he has 'rubbed' it to the point of frustration the pace of play quickens as tragedy and chaos nears.

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A5S1 Othello: "O brave Iago, honest and just, that hast such noble sense ... thou teachest me."

dramatic irony evokes frustration from the audiences at Othello's blindness as he praises the man responsible for his peripeteia. he's completely indoctrinated by Iago as he elevates him despite Othello being of a higher rank than Iago within the military

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A5S1 Enter Iago with a light.

light reveals the truth and symbolic of hope, so characters become reliant on Iago as he becomes the one to control what they see and stages him as a heroic and trusting figure.

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A5S1 Roderigo: "O damned Iago! O inhuman dog!"

Roderigo undergoes a late anagnorisis. animalistic language finally used against Iago dehumanising him as it also implies his lack of empathy.

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A5S1 Bianca: "O my dear Cassio! my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio"

mirroring of Cassio ' oh my reputation' from a2s3 and repetition reveals how Bianca is a faithful lover which challenges prostitute stereotypes of renaissance drama.

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A5S1 Bianca :"I am no strumpet "
Iago "come mistress you must tell another tale."

Emilia mirrors Iago's language 'O notable strumpet' and calls abuses Bianca when exclaiming 'O fire upon thee strumpet!'. Bianca also accused of lying through the noun 'tale' implying made up. despite her attempts of denying these allegations she's given

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A5S1 Iago :"this is the night that either makes me or fordoes me "

reflection from the start of the scene however this time Iago is by himself and the consequence for failure is worser as 'mars' only denotes impairment or spoiled while 'fordoes' denotes kill or destroy.

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A5S2 :a chamber Desdemona lies asleep in bed
Enter Othello with a light

the setting has moved to places with even less room sense of claustrophobic builds pressure and tension. Desdemona is in a vulnerable position but also her death is sexualised as it happens in their marriage bed. Othello mimics Iago's as he plays god too.

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A5S2 Othello:"ill not shed her blood, nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow and smooth as monumental alabaster"

desire for her preservation of innocence sexual corruption as virgins bleed on wedding night. fixation on white which is symbolic of purity and simile that likens her to a statue shows Othello's desire for her to be unchangeable like an object.

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A5S2 Othello:"yet she must die else she'll betray more men"

protection of males his gender, he chooses males over his own wife maybe due to their differences in background and gender questionability of true love male relations seem as sublime unlike marriage. her death justified as it suggests its for the greater

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A5S2 Othello:"put out the light"

metaphorical meaning of Othello's refusal to see the truth or killing Desdemona or literal meaning letting darkness to consume to use as concealment to kill Desdemona as desensitisation highlights how Iago has instigated this tragedy as he's in the dark

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A5S1 Othello: (he smothers her)

in killing her he also silences her which reflects her position as the silenced second sex. also reflects when he [strikes her] repeated use of sibilance 's' reinforcing idea of the silenced female and its Othello being secretive since he's ashamed.

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A5S2 Emilia:" the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!"

Desdemona aligned with heavenly imagery of 'angle' drawing on to her innocence and separated from Othello who is the devil and there's a fixation on his ethnicity Briggs said that the colour black was associated with the devil and evil doing by renaissanc

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A5S2 Emilia: "I am bound to speak"
"I will speak as liberal as the north"

simile indicates Emilia empowerment as she's determined to defy the norm of a silenced female which could be argued what killed Desdemona, but Emilia still dies as a result representing the polarising standards put on women.

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A5S2 Othello:"O cursed, cursed slave! whip me ye devils"
"O Desdemona! dead Desdemona dead O O !"

anagnorisis of what he has done causes him to experience grief and begs for punishment like 'roast me in sulphur'. cursed slave referring to himself or Iago ambiguous as they have merged

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A5S2 Othello:"like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe"

simile 'base Indian' is Othello and 'pearl' is Desdemona. Indians were described as savages, Othello has accepted that he is one now. Desdemona still objectified and given materialistic value as Othello realises his mistake.

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A5S2 Othello: [He stabs himself]

suicide is a sin in Christianity but the Greek and romans saw it as patriotic and preservation of reputation to avoiding disgrace but also in Greek/roman tragedies protagonists may also commit suicides to avoid suffering or sacrifice for greater good

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