| “I love the gentle Desdemona” | Act 1 Scene 2 on Desdemona |
| “Keep up your bright swords for the dew will rust them” | Othello advice a1s2 |
| “I therefore beg it not to please the palate of my appetite” | Court scene- Desdemona going with |
| “To be free and bounteous to her mind” | Desdemona freedom |
| “I won his daughter” | Desdemona the prize |
| “Let your sentence even fall upon my life” | Sacrifice for her |
| “Her father loved me” | Beginning of court scene speech |
| “of the cannibals that do each other eat, the Anthropophagi” | exoticism |
| “devour up my discourse” | Desdemona’s response to speech |
| “had made her such a man” | Desdemona wish for exploration |
| “she loved me for the dangers I had passed and I loved her that she did pity them” | o+d love |
| “This is the only witchcraft I have used” | vs Brabantio |
| “O my fair warrior” | equality with himself |
| “O my soul’s joy” | on Desdemona |
| “O my sweet” | endearment |
| “If it were now to die, ’twere now to be most happy” | foreshadowing |
| “it is too much of joy” | foreshadowing of sadness |
| “Iago is most honest”, “honest Iago” | irony |
| “Are we turned Turks?” | Islam irony |
| “on thy love I charge thee” | irony |
| “Cassio, I love thee” | brotherly love of Cassio |
| “Thou hast set me on the rack” | jealousy beginning |
| “Though that her jesses were my dear heart strings” | on Desdemona |
| “If she be false… heaven mocks itself” | Desdemona the unfaithful angel |
| “Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee!” | Foreshadow |
| “‘Tis not to make me jealous to say my wife is fair” | Ironic jealousy |
| “To follow all the changes of the moon with suspicion” | Women change |
| “Think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy” | Foreshadowing |
| “I had known nothing” | Venetian attitudes |
| “I think my wife is honest and think she is not” | “I think thou art just and think thou are not” |
| “Arise black damnation from hollow hell” | wedding ceremony |
| “Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!” | act 3 big speech |
| “Farewell, Othello’s occupation’s gone” | Tragic hero |
| “Handkerchief! confessions! Handkerchief!” | jealousy triplet |
| [he falls in a trance] | stage direction |
| “How shall I murder him?” | Kill Cassio |
| “sing the savageness out of a bear” | on Desdemona’s seduction |
| “would prove a crocodile” | crocodile tears |
| “She can turn and turn… and turn again” | 3x repetition falsehood |
| “O well painted passion!” | women’s deception |
| “her fan, her gloves, her mask” | methods of concealment |
| “Thou art false as hell” | Desdemona disloyalty |
| “O brave Iago, honest and just… such noble sense” | Irony on Iago act 5 |
| “Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow” | Irony as he will kill her |
| “smooth as monumental alabaster” | Desdemona death statue |
| “thy former light restore” | kill her to purify her |
| “justice to break her sword!” | doesn’t want to kill her |
| “kill thee and love thee after” | souls imagery |
| “I would not kill thy soul” | protection of her |
| “My wife, my wife! what wife? I have no wife.” | forgets her death |
| “She was false as water” | changeability of women |
| “ill-starred wench, pale as thy smock” | fate for her to die |
| “hurl my soul from heaven” | lost his honour |
| “cursed, cursed slave” | reverting to his roots |
| “one that loved not wisely but too well” | self-eulogises |
| “like the base Indian, threw a pearl away” | more racism |
| “killing myself to die upon a kiss” | romantic death |
| Would Othello have been justified in male eyes if his wife had been guilty? | Dr French |
| ‘Othello’ is virtually a straight case of sex against love, the male against the female, who is his sexual possession but can show him what love is all about. | John Bayley |
Othello character quotes
September 11, 2019