Othello Act 1 Scene 1

What is the significance of this scene in relation to the play as a whole?

Important passages

Themes

Critical theories

Introduce Iago's hatred for Othello/ the idea of conflict

Introduces the central idea of duplicity

Sets off the conflict between Brabantio and Othello

7-33: Iago's angry backstory

40-64: Iago's defiant treachery

Marxist

New historicism

"thicklips" (65)

"an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe!" (87-88)

"I know my price, I am worth no worse a place" (10)

"doting on his own obsequious bondage, / Wears out his time" (45-46)

" Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains, / Yet for necessity of present life / I must show out a flag and sign of love, / Which is indeed but sign." (152-154)

"Fathers, from hence trust not your daughter's minds / By what you see them act" (168-169)

Feminist

"you're robbed" (85)

"Your daughter, if you have not given her leave, / I say again, hath made a gross revolt" (131-132)

"Fathers, from hence trust not your daughter's minds / By what you see them act" (168-169)

Post-colonialism

"an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe!" (87-88)

"the devil will make a grandsire of you" (90)

"your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you," (110-111)

"your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs." (113-115)

"gross clasps of a lascivious Moor" (124)

"extravagant and wheeling stranger / Of here and everywhere" (134-135)

"Is there not charms / By which the property of youth and maidenhood / May be abused?" (169-171)

Otherness

Female subordination/ women as property

Duplicity/ misdirection

Revenge

Explains Iago's motives for disliking Othello, though not his complete hatred

Introduces us to the idea that Iago might use Cassio in his attempt to bring down Othello, due to his involvement.

Establishes Iago as a wronged figure, who just wants the recognition he feels he deserves, and Othello as a foolish leader who makes poor decisions regarding the quality of people he surrounds himself with.

Reveals Iago's true duplicitous nature, though still insists he is doing it for good reasons.

He shuns the idea of servitude and and submission to the wills of others, despite his position as an Ancient

"I am not what I am." (64)

Crit Quotes

Motive hunting of motiveless malignity - Coleridge

England was increasingly hostile to foreigners, both officially and at popular level - Loomba

Desdemona becomes a stereotype of female passivity - Jardine

'Venice became an ideal that was invoked by English writers to subtly critique domestic affairs' - Loomba

'Iago's racist incentive is spawned by the disappointment he suffers when Othello advances Cassio' - D. Wright

'The reader is forced into the same racist mindset the characters simply because of the descriptions they offer' - Smith

Iago is an 'amoral artist who seeks to fashion the world in his own interest' - Hazlitt