The role of Othello

Quote

Act/Scene

Analysis

“An old black ram / is tupping your white ewe” (Iago)

Act 1 Scene 1

Animal imagery; juxtaposition of “black” and “white” and pejorative (racist) language

“The devil” (Iago about Othello)

Act 1 Scene 1

Growing awareness of racial difference in society; equating dark skin with the devil

“Valiant Moor” (Duke of Venice)

Act 1 Scene 3

Epithet establishes respected position

“More fair than black” (Duke of Venice)

Act 1 Scene 3

Oxymoron; “fair” symbolises goodness.

“Most potent, grave and reverent seigniors” (Othello)

Act 1 Scene 3

Eloquent, formal verse – iambic pentameter

“Thou has enchanted her” and “Chains of magic” (Brabantio)

Act 1 Scene 2

Motif of dark magic links to contextual racial prejudice

“When she is / sated in his body, she will find error in her ways” (Iago)

Act 1 Scene 3

High modal statement regarding Desdemona’s choice to marry Othello

“I had rather be a toad... than keep a corner in the thing I love for others’ uses” (Othello)

Act 3 Scene 3

Using animal imagery to depict Othello is a commonplace occurrence (treating him as lower down on the Great Chain of Being – see page 4)

“O beware... of jealousy: / It is the green eyed monster” (Iago)

Act 3 Scene 3

Foreshadowing the jealousy that consumes Othello later in the play, along with animal imagery.

“She had eyes and chose me” (Othello)

Act 3 Scene 3

Motif of ‘seeing’ and ‘proof’

“Give me the ocular proof” (Othello)

Act 3 Scene 3

Motif of ‘seeing’ and ‘proof’

“I’ll see before I doubt, when I doubt, prove” (Othello)

Act 3 Scene 3

Motif of ‘seeing’ and proof; revealing the value Othello places on evidence (ironically, he seems to follow flimsy, circumstantial evidence from Iago, rather than try to obtain concreate evidence for Desdemona’s alleged infidelity)

“Blood, blood, blood!” (Othello)

Act 3 Scene 3

Epizeuxis emphasising Othello’s paranoid rage

“I’ll tear her to pieces!” (Othello)

Act 3 Scene 3

Exclamatory