Othello Key Quotes

Act 1

  • “I know my price. I am worth no worse a place” - Iago, scene 1: declarative sentence and metaphor (themes: power, class, jealousy, identity)

  • “I am not what I am.” - Iago, scene 1: juxtaposition, declarative sentence, inversion of God’s “I am what I am.” (themes: deceit, appearance vs reality, jealousy, identity)

  • “An old black ram is tupping your white ewe” - Iago, scene 1: zoomorphic metaphor and juxtaposition (themes: race, deceit, gender)

  • “Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs” - Iago: plosive alliteration and metaphor (themes: race, deceit, gender)

  • “Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags! Thieves! Thieves!” - Iago, scene 1: anaphora and repetition (themes: gender and race)

  • “O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!” - Brabantio, scene 1: rhetorical question, metaphor, and exclamative (themes: gender and power)

  • “My parts, my title, and my perfect soul / shall manifest me rightly.” - Othello, scene 2: anaphora/tricolon and declarative sentence (themes: power, race, deceit, identity)

  • “Thou hast enchanted her.” - Brabantio, scene 2: declarative sentence (themes: race, power, identity)

  • “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / and I loved her that she did pity them.” - Othello, scene 3: parallelism (themes: gender, race, power, love)

  • “Rude am I in my speech… little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.” - Othello, scene 3: metaphor and sibilance (themes: race, power, identity)

  • “I do perceive here a divided duty” - Desdemona, scene 3: plosive alliteration (themes: gender, power, love)

  • “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind” - Desdemona, scene 3: metaphor (themes: race, gender, power, love)

  • “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: / she has deceived her father, and may thee/.” - Brabantio, scene 3: rhyme (themes: power, gender, race)

  • “The Moor is of a free and open nature / that thinks men honest but seem to be so".” - Iago, scene 3

  • “I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night / must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light” - Iago, scene 3

Act 2

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Act 3

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Act 4

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Act 5

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