Critical quotes per theme/character

Marian Cox

·         Nearly every scene in the play refers to or depends upon a character seeing and knowing something or someone

·         Iago destabilizes Othello’s trust and faith by exposing them as irrational substitutes for knowledge

·         Power and authority because of his knowledge

·         We feel unsure about the validity of their love

W H Auden

·         Iago is motivated by the desire to know and show what Othello is really like.

Jealousy

Dostoevsky

·         Iago was not jealous, he was trustful

Honor

Marian Cox

·         Honest is used 52 times

·         Death was preferable to dishonor

·         A man’s honor was inseparable from his wife’s behavior

·         Desdemona is accused of the double dishonesty of lying and of lying with other men

Cassio

A C Bradley

·         There is something very lovable about Cassio

·         We trust him absolutely to never pervert the truth for the sake of some doctrine or purpose of his own.

Emilia

A C Bradley

·         She nowhere shows any sign of having a bad heart

·         Her stupidity in this matter is gross, but it is stupidity and nothing worse.

Matt Simpson

·         Emilia underscores Desdemona’s lack of knowledge in the world

·         She dies in the service of truth

·         We have to acknowledge the fact that wives are required to be obedient to understand Emilia’s handing over of the handkerchief

Desdemona

Jarvis

·         A whores death for all her Innocence

Marian Cox

·         Damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

·         Characters divide into virgins and saints or whores and devils

Adams

·         She falls in love…for no better reason than that he has told her a braggart story

Bianca

Matt Simpson

·         Bianca is, like Othello and Cassio, an outsider

·         An Italian name that translates as ‘white’

·         She underscores the theme of jealousy

Women.

Jardine

·         All three are wrongfully accused of sexual misdemeanor in the course of the play

·         Most readily available form of assault on a woman’s reputation

Marian Cox

·         Women’s parts in the plays did not equal mens in number, size or status because they were written for boy actors with unbroken voices

·         Women could only rise through their association with men and their rank

·         Men wished to marry virgins

·         This made reputation an essential commodity for social society.

·         Dialogues…Reveal a deep seated fear of women deceiving them.

·         Fallen woman… necessitating suicide or entrance into a nunnery.

Matt Simpson

·         Iago is exposed as a shallow fool

Iago

Hazlitt

·         We only see the hollowness of his heart.

Marian Cox

·         Iago is Satanic in his energy

·         ‘Lucky’ is perhaps a more appropriate fixed epitaph than ‘honest’

·         He makes his superiors his puppets

·         He is the black sheep and resists this state of affairs by turning everyone else black rather than allowing them to feel superior in their whiteness

·         1097 lines to Othello’s 887

Bradley

·         General spite against the goodness in men

·         Mere Puppets in his hands

Blake

·         He publishes doubt and calls it knowledge

Cowhig

·         Iago is eaten up with sexual jealousy

Crawford

·         If Othello can be capable of such gross violation of all military rules and practices, Iago sees that he can no longer trust Othello

Matt Simpson

·         We have to recognize that to fantasists, fantasies are real

Warren

·         Iago revels in his ability to revel and destroy

·         He enjoys his ability to hoodwink others into believing he is honest

·         Stage manager…controlling his victims effortlessly

Othello

Warnken?

·         Othello is no fool

Rymer

·         Maidens of quality should not run away with black moors,

Matt Simpson

·         Othello allows Iago to replace Desdemona in his esteem and affection, and as his confidant and soulmate.

·         In a sense, what Othello is doing is executing the Iago under his own skin

Briggs

·         Blackness was associated with the devil, evil doing and death

Bradley

·         He is by far the most romantic figure among Shakespeare’s heroes

·         He does not belong to our world

·         He seems to enter it we know not whence- almost as if from wonderland

Leavis

·         Othello is completely flawed

T S Elliott

·         Cheering himself up

Hazlitt

·         He knew that love of power, which is another name for the love of mischief, is natural to  men.

Marian Cox

·         Whose diction he is copying

·         It is questionable how noble it is to marry secretly without permission

Race

Ruth Cowhig

·         An Alien in a white society

·         The black villain in a white society

Belsey

·         Product of a society already fascinated by travelers’ tales of distant cultures

Loomba

·         Women and blacks exist as the ‘other’