Sex

Sex

1. IAGO

   • 'Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe'
     • Act 1, Scene 1
     • Uses animal metaphors to suggest that Desdemona is being defiled by Othello to play on Brabantio's fears of miscegenation. Specifically mentioning black as the ram, often associated with the Devil, and white with the ewe, which is a young, pure and innocent animal, plays on the idea that Othello, as a black man, is sexually assaulting a younger, white woman
   • IAGO: 'Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carrack. If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.' CASSIO: 'I do not understand.' IAGO: 'He's married'
     • Act 1, Scene 2
     • He describes marriage/sex as the violent takeover of an enemy's prize ship, bringing us back to the theory that love is like a war in 'Othello', with Iago as the maestro

2. OTHELLO

   • 'Come, my dear love, the purchase made, the fruits are to ensue; the profit's yet to come 'tween me and you. - Goodnight'
     • Act 2, Scene 3
     • He suggests that sex is a positive thing and that it is something for both the man and woman to enjoy (it 'profits' both genders)
     • However, language such as 'purchase' and 'profits' also link to him seeing Desdemona as his possession that he can do what he wants with
   • DESDEMONA: 'Why do you speak so faintly? Are you not well?' OTHELLO: 'I have a pain upon my forehead, here'
     • Act 3, Scene 3
     • In Elizabethan literature, any reference to a man having a headache/growing horns out of his forehead, are references to cuckoldry, linking to the belief that Desdemona had slept with Cassio
   • 'Her name, that was a fresh as Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black as mine own face'
     • Act 3, Scene 3
     • After suspecting that Desdemona has been cheating on him, Othello says that his 'name', or his reputation, has now been spoiled ('begrimed') because of it. The idea that a wife's infidelity can break his reputation is common within several Shakespeare plays
   • 'Behold, I have a weapon. A better never did itself sustain upon a soldier's thigh'
     • Act 5, Scene 2
     • Seems blatantly phallic. This forges a disturbing relationship between sex and death

3. OTHELLO: 'In the due reverence of a sacred vow, I here engage my words.' IAGO: 'Do not rise yet. (Iago kneels). Witness, you ever-burning lights above, you elements that clip us round about, witness here that Iago doth give up the execution of his wit, hands, heart to wronged Othello's service! Let him command, and to obey shall be in me remorse, What bloody business ever...I am your own for ever'

   • Act 3, Scene 4
   • This speech both looks and sounds like a 16th century wedding ceremony. The significance of this is argued, but one theory is that this is a suggestion of Othello and Iago's homoerotic attachment

4. EMILIA'S SPEECH (ACT 4, SCENE 3)

   • Emilia recognises that there are double standards for men and women when it comes to fidelity (men are allowed to cheat on their wives, but not the opposite way round) which she heartily objects too