othello quotes quiz

“I am not what I am” (1.1.71) Speaker: IagoTo Whom: Roderigo Analysis: This is Iago basically confessing to the deceiving role he plays. While he appears to be a loyal, honest, and kind man, he is actually tricking and playing everyone around him for his own personal benefit. Thus he is not who he seems to be, and people’s blindness to this is one of the tragedies of the play.
“An old black ram/ is tupping your white ewe” (1.1.97-98) Speaker: IagoTo Whom: RoderigoAnalysis: Racism, as a moor, or black man he is hurting Desdemona’s status as a powerful white women. Iago says trying to ignite anger at Othello in Roderigo, as if Othello, an “old black ram” is taking advantage of Rodrigo’s “white ewe,” almost as if Othello is thus “tupping” (having sex with) Rodrigo’s love, even though Desdemona and Roderigo are not together.
“You’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse, you’ll have your nephews neigh to you” (1.1.125-126) Speaker: IagoTo Whom: Brabantio Analysis: Basically putting the idea in Brabantio’s head that it is not okay for Desdemona to marry and have kids with Othello because he is black
“O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ mindsBy what you see them act” (1.1.191-193) Speaker: BrabantioTo Whom: Roderigo — all fathers?Analysis: Here Brabantio is speaking to what he feels is his daughter’s betrayal falling for a moor, which was unheard of, and showcasing how women were seen as foolish and deceiving and shouldn’t be trusted.
“Let him do his spite. My services which I have done the signiory Shall out-tongue his complaints” (1.2.20-22) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: IagoAnalysis: Othello is confident that his physical actions will out shine the judgments based on his skin color, thus expecting people to look based his race to see who is as a person, which foreshadows his last words.
“Her father loved me, oft invited me Still questioned me the story of my life” (1.3.149-150) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: DukeAnalysis: Showing how before he was actually in love with and marrying Desdemona, which would make him close to and part of the family, everyone was friendly and loving towards him ‘ignorning’ his skin color as a reason for discrimination. But as soon as he becomes close to part of the family, they begin to hate on him. As if they won’t discriminate until it hits close to home, where they can no longer hide their racism.
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them” (1.3.193-194) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: DukeAnalysis: Desdemona loves him for the hardships he had experienced, as his he was her prized hero, exotic to her because of the slavery which he escaped from, like an exoitic animal that she can care for, and will love her back for the care she gives, even if he can clearly fend for himself.
“You are pictures out of door, bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens, saints in your injuries, devils being offended, players in your huswifery, and huswives in your beds” (2.1.121-125) Speaker: IagoTo Whom: all women, Emilia and DesdemonaAnalysis: Iago sees women as useless and lazy except for in bed, showcasing how women were seen at the time as only valued for sex, and seen as “slutty” and or “promiscuous” but otherwise lazy and unwilling to work.
“Why, how now, ho! From whence ariseth this?Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do thatWhich heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?” (2.3.181-183) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: IagoAnalysis: Basically questioning if they have become as savage as the Turks, that they are hypocrite by acting the same as those which they seak to attack, and thus they are attacking eachother. Showcasing how the Venicans are guilty of exactly what the fight against.
“Thy solicitor shall rather dieThan give thy cause away” (3.3.29-30) Speaker: DesdemonaTo Whom: CassioAnalysis: She basically is saying that Cassio should not worry, that she will defend him to Othello, and she would die before letting him lose his position. Basically saying she will fight for him against Othello, unaware of the way this will be interpreted by Othello himself.
“O beware, my lord, of jealousy!It is the green-eyed monster which doth mockThe meat it feeds on” (3.3.195-197) Speaker: IagoTo Whom: OthelloAnalysis: Jealously, a theme throughout the novel, acts like poison, or a “monster,” eating up the minds of those who become it. Like Othello, once the idea of Desdemona’s infidelity is placed in his mind by Iago. Ironic
“For she had eyes, and chose me” (3.3.220) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: IagoAnalysis: Othello is confident that when Desdemona fell in love with him she saw past his skin color, without judgement but just in the way that she was able to love him for who he was as an equal, and she did so by choice, thus he has confidence in her honest love for him.
“I had been happy if the general camp,Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,So I had nothing known” (3.3.337-339) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: IagoAnalysis: Othello speaks on the question held throughout the play, being is it is better to know about something that will upset you or live in ignorant bless, he her states he would rather have the whole army sleep with Desdemona without him knowing, than know for fact that Cassio had.
“Who he? I think the sun where he was bornDrew all such humors for him” (3.4.31-32) Speaker: DesdemonaTo Whom: EmiliaAnalysis: She her claims that because of where Othello is from, africa, and because of his enslaved history, the problems she sees around her must go over his head, as if he is more than human because of his background and ethnicity and thus immune to these everyday troubles.
“They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;They eat us hungerly, and when they are fullThey belch us” (3.4.121-124) Speaker: EmiliaTo Whom: DesdemonaAnalysis: Men in this time use women, step all over them, and spit them out. Yet if they try to do the same, they are literally killed. Exposing the gender inequality, and sexism of the time period
“Nay, we must think men are not gods,Nor of them look for such observancyAs fits the bridal” (3.4.169-171) Speaker: DesdemonaTo Whom: EmiliaAnalysis: Basically saying that women can’t view their husbands as perfect, and worship them like Gods, that no one is perfect and no one’s mistakes should be overlooked as if they were perfect.
“There’s many a beast, then, in a populous city,And many a civil monster” (4.1.75) Speaker: IagoTo Whom: OthelloAnalysis: In a cosmopolitan society, villains go unnoticed as they do not appear to be villains, much like Iago himself, the evil, selfish, and deceiving monsters are able to hide within the midst of everyday life going unnoticed, the society’s blindness to them is one of the true tragedies of this play. This line is meant to be ironic as well, exposing the problem I just stated.
“Let husbands knowTheir wives have sense like them.They see, andSmell,And have their palates both for sweet and sour,As husbands have” (4.3.105) Speaker: EmiliaTo Whom: DesdemonaAnalysis: Basically saying that women are capable of the same things as men-their husbands, and that it should be acknowledged.
“Yet I’ll not shed her, Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,And smooth as monumental alabaster” (5.2.3-6) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: No one – soliloque Analysis: He is insecure of his own skin, and glorifies Desdemona’s, like she is a statue made of “monumental alabaster” she is like a perfect specimen in his eyes, that he must kill as to not share with anyone else, like his most prized possession that is one of a kind and must only be his.
“Nobody. I myself. Farewell” (5.2.152) Speaker: DesdemonaTo Whom: Othello and Emilia Analysis: In not blaming Othello, she blames herself for her own murder, as if to say it was her own fault for trusting him, and that by that she brought her death upon herself.
“O the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!” (5.2.161) Speaker: EmiliaTo Whom: OthelloAnalysis: As soon as he hurts Desdemona, all shield from racism is gone, as if now they have an excuse to plant his race as the reason behind his actions, “blacker devil” connecting his skin to something evil.
“‘Twill out, ’twill out. I peace? No, I will speak as liberal as the north. Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak” (5.2.260-264) Speaker: EmiliaTo Whom: IagoAnalysis: She is basically saying that she will speak radically, against those who oppress her and expect other wise because she must speak the truth. There is some irony as although this is radical in the terms of defending a woman, as a woman (feminism), she still oppresses Othello because of his race, which is not “as liberal as the north”.
“O thou, Othello, that once so good, Fall’n in the practice of a <damned. Slave,What shall be said to thee?" (5.2. 322-324) Speaker: LodovicoTo Whom: Othello Analysis: the change from him being referred to as “My Lord” to “Slave”, showing how quickly stereotypes set in once they are given an excuse to no longer look passed his skin color, and it as if he is now awake to the racism around him and seems to begin believing and accepting it himself as inescapable.
“Then must you speakOf one that loved not wisely, but too well;Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,Like the base judean, threw a pearl awayRicher than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,Albeit unused to the melting mood,Drops tears as fast as the Arabian treesTheir medicinable gum. Set you down, this,And say besides, that in Aleppo once,Where a malignant and turbanned TurkBeat a Venetian and traduced the state,I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog,And smote him, thus” (5.2. 403-417) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: everyone present before his death Analysis: He now seems to acknowledge their racism in the context that he begs them to remember him accurately, as if they wouldn’t, and to not let their view of his recent actions take away all the nobel things he did for them in his life, and to not use this as an excuse to make a race based assumption, but to see him for who he truly was.
“I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but this,Killing myself, to die upon a kiss” (5.2.420-421) Speaker: OthelloTo Whom: No one– It’s a soliloquyAnalysis: Even after killing her, Desdemona is his whole life, and now that he realizes her innocence he must kill himself as “no way but this” will allow him to be with her again. Thus he dies kissing her to insure they will be connected in love through life and death.
August 17, 2019