ATAR Notes Othello Quote Bank

Vocabulary flashcards created from the Othello Quote Bank notes, detailing key quotes, location, literary techniques, analysis, and central thematic concepts.

“Blood, blood, blood!”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Repetition emphasising Othello’s paranoid rage. | Concepts: Rage, violence, loss of reason.

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

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 1 | Analysis: Animal imagery; juxtaposition of “black” and “white”; and pejorative (racist language). | Concepts: Racism, animal imagery.

“They are all but stomachs, and we all but food”

Speaker: Emilia | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 4 | Analysis: Metaphor. | Concepts: Male appetite, female objectification, marriage.

“I am not what I am”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 1 | Analysis: Oxymoron; biblical allusion (Exodus and the Devil being deceiving). | Concepts: Deception, dramatic irony.

“I have not deserved this”

Speaker: Desdemona | Act/Scene: Act 4 Scene 1 | Analysis: Defiant tone. | Concepts: Innocence, female resistance, injustice.

“I had rather be a toad… than keep a corner in the thing I love for others’ uses”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Using animal imagery to depict Othello is a commonplace occurrence (treating him as lower down on the Great Chain of Being). | Concepts: Animal imagery, jealousy, possession.

“good Iago” and “honest Iago”

Speaker: Desdemona, Cassio, Othello | Act/Scene: Throughout the play | Analysis: Paradoxical if his actions are compared to his false façade of friendship; epithets talking of Iago in a better light than he deserves. | Concepts: Reputation, trust, deception.

“Valiant Moor”

Speaker: Duke of Venice | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 3 | Analysis: Epithet establishes respected position. | Concepts: Reputation, status.

“You are… devils being offended, players in housewifery, and hussies in your beds”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 2 Scene 1 | Analysis: Metaphor; plural nouns that suggest this applies to all women. | Concepts: Misogyny, female stereotypes.

“Honourable murderer… for nought did I in hate, but all in honour”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 5 Scene 2 | Analysis: Paradox that reflects Othello’s desire to seek justice and honour. | Concepts: Honour, justice, tragic hero.

“Turn virtue into pitch”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 2 Scene 3 | Analysis: Soliloquy; motif of blackness; associations with evil and corrupting purity. | Concepts: Corruption, light/dark symbolism, evil.

“O beware… of jealousy: / It is the green eyed monster”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Foreshadowing the jealousy that consumes Othello later in the play, along with animal imagery. | Concepts: Jealousy, foreshadowing, manipulation.

“It is their husbands’ fault / If wives do fall”

Speaker: Emilia | Act/Scene: Act 4 Scene 3 | Analysis: Diffusion of responsibility; reinforcing the dichotomy between the role of men and women in society. | Concepts: Gender inequality, proto feminism, blame.

“Thou has enchanted her” and “Chains of magic”

Speaker: Brabantio | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 2 | Analysis: Motif of dark magic links to contextual racial prejudice. | Concepts: Racism, witchcraft, patriarchal ownership.

“She loved thee cruel Moor”

Speaker: Emilia | Act/Scene: Act 5 Scene 2 | Analysis: Revelation in the denouement. | Concepts: Truth revealed, tragic irony, female loyalty.

“Give me the ocular proof”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Motif of ‘seeing’ and ‘proof’. | Concepts: Evidence, jealousy.

“With as little web as this / will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 2 Scene 1 | Analysis: Metaphor; animal imagery; motif of predator/prey relationship. | Concepts: Manipulation, predator, plotting.

“More fair than black”

Speaker: Duke of Venice | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 3 | Analysis: Oxymoron: “fair” symbolises goodness. | Concepts: Racism.

“Subtle whore… and yet she’ll kneel and pray”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 4 Scene 2 | Analysis: Contrast of whoredom and religion to signify Desdemona’s appearance of purity; adoption of Iago’s derogatory language emblematic of how he has corrupted the play itself. | Concepts: Madonna/whore dichotomy, corrupted language.

“I’ll tear her to pieces!”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Exclamatory statement; tone of finality; animalistic and barbaric imagery. | Concepts: Violence, savagery, loss of control.

“Foul thief, where has thou stowed my daughter?”

Speaker: Brabantio (to Othello) | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 3 | Analysis: Accusing tone; women treated as the property of men; likening of women to objects that can be ‘stolen’ or claimed by other men. | Concepts: Women as property, patriarchal control.

“Most potent, grave and reverent seigniors”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 3 | Analysis: Eloquent, formal verse – iambic pentameter. | Concepts: Status, eloquence, Othello's public persona.

“When I love thee not,/ Chaos is come again”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Foreshadowing when Othello becomes so angry towards Desdemona, that chaos and death occurs – a weakness Iago exploits. | Concepts: Love vs chaos, vulnerability, foreshadowing.

“The devil”

Speaker: Iago (about Othello) | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 1 | Analysis: Growing awareness of racial difference in society; equating dark skin with the devil. | Concepts: Racism.

“Whate’ver you be, I am obedient”

Speaker: Desdemona | Act/Scene: Act 4 Scene 3 | Analysis: Definitive statement about the true nature of women in the play. | Concepts: Female obedience, submission, marriage.

“I’ll see before I doubt, when I doubt, prove”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: 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 concrete evidence for Desdemona’s alleged infidelity). | Concepts: Seeing/proof, irony and flawed reasoning.

“As I am an honest man”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 2 Scene 3 | Analysis: Dramatic Irony. | Concepts: Dramatic irony, false honesty.

“She must die, else she’ll betray more men”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 5 Scene 2 | Analysis: Definitive statement that shows inability to discriminate trust from lies. | Concepts: Honour, misogyny, distorted judgement.

“She has deceived her father, and may thee”

Speaker: Brabantio (to Othello) | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 3 | Analysis: Dramatic Irony. | Concepts: Irony, patriarchy, distrust.

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

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 3 | Analysis: High modal statement regarding Desdemona’s choice to marry Othello. | Concepts: Manipulation, misogyny, doubt.

“Sorrows heavenly; / it strikes where it doth love”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 5 Scene 2 | Analysis: Soliloquy; paradox. | Concepts: Love vs violence, tragedy, self justification.

“Men should be what they seem”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Irony; deception. | Concepts: Irony, hypocrisy, trust.

“Are you not a strumpet? … I took you for that cunning whore of Venice / that married with Othello”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 4 Scene 2 | Analysis: Third person voice to further distance himself from Desdemona; harsh pejorative attacks on Desdemona’s virtue. | Concepts: Slut shaming, loss of trust, verbal abuse.

“She had eyes and chose me”

Speaker: Othello | Act/Scene: Act 3 Scene 3 | Analysis: Motif of ‘seeing’ and ‘proof’. | Concepts: Proof, evidence, jealousy.

“Thou has practiced on her with foul charms”

Speaker: Brabantio | Act/Scene: Act 1 Scene 2 | Analysis: Characterisation; presumption of witchcraft. | Concepts: Witchcraft, false accusation.

“This is the fruit of whoring”

Speaker: Iago | Act/Scene: Act 5 Scene 1 | Analysis: Pejorative language. | Concepts: Misogyny, scapegoating, hypocrisy.