Eng. 12 - Fishbowl Notes

Jealousy

Envy vs. jealousy

-remember to relate to our world - human nature, generally

-difference between envy and jealousy:

• Insecurity plays a part
• Envy = a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by another's better fortune
• Jealousy = afraid, suspicious or resentful of rivalry in love or affection (or a person's advantages)

"green-eyed monster"

• Main reason I iii 329-430  for Othello to kill Desdemona:

Iago sets it up "I hate the Moor;/ And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets/ H'as done my office"

-He goes on to say that he doesn't think it's true

• Iago is jealous of Cassio, also Othello (his status, the fact that he doesn't seem to care about him, that he promoted Cassio above him, that he has Desdemona, that the Duke respects him more and it sticks in his craw that he's black)

"Virtue a fig" - Iago thinks our wills control our emotions - but he is consumed by his jealousy (I iii 320) - we find that Iago is the most driven by his emotions (he thinks he is detached)

[could find examples of Iago admiring Desdemona}

Jealous of Othello and Desdemona's love? - look at his relationship with Emilia (first interaction - he insults her)

-could you tie this into BNW - human emotions

-Brabantio is jealous of Othello - Desdemona betrays her father by eloping with Othello

• Sexual suspicion
• Job competition
• Status

-Important to try to find how the jealousy I s set up: "After some time, to abuse Othello's ear/That he is too familiar with his wife...The Moor is a free and open nature/That thinks men honest that but seem to be so;" (I iii 397-401)

"Hell and night/Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light" (I iii 405)

"Then you must speak/Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;/Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,/Perplexed in the extreme; (V ii 344-347)

Desdemona and Cassio show no sign of jealousy

III iii "Think, my lord?

By heaven, he echoes me,

As if there were some monster in his thought

Too hideous to be shown.  Thou dost mean something:

I heard thee say but now, thou lik'st not that,

When Cassio left my wife.  What didst not like?

And when I told thee he was of my counsel

In my whole course of wooing, thou cried'st 'Indeed?'

And didst contract and purse thy brow together,

As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

Some horrible conceit.  If thou doest love me,

Show me thy thought."

Hero and Villain

• What qualities make a villain or a hero?
• Othello = tragic hero - must fall from grace (in this case, we have Iago as the nemesis) character flaw = jealousy or insecurity (his own nature)
• Ties in with prejudice - underneath Othello's good nature and gentleness = virile man who is ruled by animal instinct (darkness in Othello's heart - Shakespeare's prejudice? Or tragic hero's fall from grace?)

Hero

 -good soldier - Duke has faith in him - willing to forgive him what Brabantio accuses him of because of his heroism

Villain

Vii "Base Judean who threw the pearl away" (V ii 348)

• Insecurity gets the better of him

-How does he see himself?  "A turbaned Turk (Vii 354) - epiphany - self awareness - relates himself to a "malignant" enemy - CATHARSIS - kills himself - actual nature is revealed

-makes the realization too late - can use what he learned

• Fall from grace is egged on by Iago

• What is Othello called "the beast with two backs" "old black ram" - also baboon at some point, Barbary horse
• Othello is vulnerable - black, different culture
• Iago wrecks Othello's relationships with Desdemona, Cassio, Montano - he isolates Othello so that he can only rely on "honest Iago"

-how does Othello's race tie in with the assessment of Othello being a villain or a hero

• As a black man he feels less secure - people judge him - Brabantio doesn't want him to marry his daughter, doesn't think he can converse well, thinks Desdemona will think he's coarse

"Haply, for I am black/And have not those soft parts of conversation/That chamberers have, or for I am declined/ Into the vale of years"  (III iii 264-266)

Prejudice

• Look at first interchange between Iago and Emilia

• Age, race, gender, status
• How is Othello affected - called "Barbary horse," "thick lips," "old black ram"
• This undermined his confidence
• "beast with two backs"
• Animal imagery provided by Iago -in the end he becomes the animal they call him
• Emilia calls him the "blacker devil"
• Othello talks about his own black face when he compares himself to Desdemona
• Outsider: III iii 386 "Her name, that was as fresh/As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black/As mine own face."

• Misogyny
• II i "You are pictures
• "You rise to play, and go to bed to work." (II i 115)
• Othello hits Desdemona (shocked his fellow Venetian - this is racist and sexist!) - Grantiano
• "lusty moor"
• Cassio makes fun of Bianca IV i  (which ends up setting up Othello to think Desdemona really did sleep with Cassio)
• Why a courtesan?
• Othello believes Desdemona slept with Cassio because he feels emasculated, but also he easily thinks she would be disloyal
• Brabantio feels Desdemona is his property - Iago says Brabantio has been robbed
• Emilia says it's a husband's fault if wives do fall  (IV iii 85)
• III iv - Emilia calls men "stomachs"

• Religious Intolerance
  -Othello calls "circumcised dog"

• Cassio is not called a whore for sleeping with Bianca or Desdemona - but both are called whores

• Desdemona is dishonest or disloyal to either her husband or her father (can't win)
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