OTHELLO-THEMES

OTHELLO-THEMES

1. JEALOUSY

   • O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on
   • A great arithmetician, one Michael Cassio, a florentine
   • He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.
   • Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell.
   • Preferment goes by letter and affection and not by old gradation where each second stood heir to the first.

2. APPEARANCE VS REALITY

   • Othello-Iago is most honest
   • Iago about Cassio- mere prattle without practice
   • I do love Cassio well, and would do much to cure him of this evil.
   • I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at. I am not what I am
   • You have lost no reputation at all
   • I am your own forever.
   • Iago- showing but shows on service on their lords
   • I tell thee again and again, I hate the moor
   • The moor is of a free and open nature that thinks men honest that but seem to be so.

3. HONOUR AND REPUTATION

   • my parts, my title and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly.
   • from year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes that I have passed.
   • I know my price, I am worth no worse a place: But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, Evades them
   • Reputation reputation reputation! O I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.
   • Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well; of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, perplexed in the extreme

4. LOVE

   • The rites for which I love him are bereft me...let me go with him!
   • She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd. And I love her for that she did pity them.
   • yet she wished that heaven had made her such a man
   • My soul hath her content so absolute that not another comfort like to this succeeds in unknown fate

5. SAVAGERY VS PEACE

   • Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. Good signior, you shall more command with years Than with your weapons.
   • Hold your hands, Both you of my inclining and the rest. Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter.
   • Animal Imagery
     • old black ram
     • you'll have your daughter covered with a barbary horse
     • your daughter and the moor are now making the beast with two backs
     • sooty bosom

6. PREJUDICE

   • an old black ram is tupping your white ewe
   • to the gross clasp of a lascivious moor
   • Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom of such a thing as thou- to fear, not to delight
   • Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her!...if she in chains of magic were not bound
   • Haply, for I am black..for I am declined into the vale of years

7. GOOD VS EVIL (HEAVEN VS HELL)

   • or else the devil will made a grandsire of you
   • so will I turn her virtue into pitch and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all
   • I'll pour this pestilence into his ear
   • Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals