Attitudes to love
Othello (love is real, but it becomes possessive, unstable, and finally violent)
“She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d/ and I loved her that she did pity them” (1.3)
Othello’s marriage is not initially presented as lust, trickery or corruption, but as a
relationship built on emotional exchange. The repeated “loved” suggests balance and
reciprocity.
But Shakespeare also introduces vulnerability through the mention of “dangers”, suggesting
that they fell in love through storytelling, suffering and idealisation, not through domestic
familiarity.
If Othello’s love is built on emotional intensity and idealisation, then it is especially
vulnerable when that ideal image begins to crack, or when domestic life becomes the norm.
This suggests that love in the play is not false from the start but is vulnerably precisely
because it is idealized and emotionally absolute. This tension is what makes Othello tragic
rather than simply foolish.
“My life upon her faith”
“My life” is extreme – he places not just affection, but his entire being on her loyalty. The
exclamation makes sit sound impulsive and total. So even before jealousy begins,
Shakespeare shows that Othello’s love is built on total confidence rather than measured
knowledge. Their love is arguably real, but vulnerable because it is absolute.
“But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, / chaos is come again”
Develops the idea that Othello’s love is not simply affectionate, but it is structural to his
identity. Desdemona gives him emotional order. Without her, there is “chaos”. Shakespeare
presents Othello’s love as something dangerous and without middle ground. He doesn’t love
in a stable or ordinary way; he loves in a way that makes emotional collapse inevitable if
trust is broken.
If Desdemona is tied to Othello’s entire sense of order, then any suspicion about her
becomes more than marital doubt – it becomes a threat to his selfhood.
This supports the idea that jealousy becomes so destructive because Othello’s love is rooted
in emotional extremity, not resilience.
Othello is a tragic lover.
, “O curse of marriage, / that we can call these delicate creatures ours/ and not their
appetites”
This is where Othello’s love begins to curdle into possession. The possessive noun “ours”
shows that he no longer thinks about Desdemona as a person he loves, but as something
that should belong to him and remain controllable. This is a huge shift from the first quote.
It has become proprietorial. This is where Shakespeare reveals that Othello’s jealousy is not
just fear of betrayal – but it is fear of losing ownership.
Once love becomes possession, it can no longer tolerate ambiguity or female independence,
and this pushes Othello towards violence.
This suggests that love becomes destructive when it is tied to control rather than trust,
making jealousy inseparable from patriarchal entitlement.
Othello is shaped by a patriarchal culture that treats wives as property?
“Keep up your swords bright, for the dew will rust them” “O; blood, blood, blood!”
Jealousy is not just an emotion in the play – it is a force that deforms love into brutality.
At the start if the play, Othello’s speech is expansive, elegant, and controlled. “Rude am I in
my speech” Othello claims simplicity, but his speech is actually deeply persuasive and richly
poetic. Shakespeare deliberately established him as rhetorically powerful, so that his later
linguistic collapse becomes more tragic. By the time that jealousy fully takes hold, his
language becomes fragmented, repetitive, and primal. The poetry of love is replaced by the
rhetoric of punishment.
By the time that he kills Desdemona, Shakespeare has already shown that emotionally and
linguistically, Othello is no longer the same man.
1. Othello is psychologically destroyed by Iago
2. Shakespeare may be revealing what was always latent within him – that love and
violence were never fully separate for Othello.
“One that loved not wisely but too well”
Shakespeare ultimately suggests that one of the greatest dangers in love is the inability to
distinguish between devotion and domination.
His final speech still centers himself and romanticises abuse under the language of love?
Othello tries to interpret his downfall as the result of loving too much rather than loving
wrongly. It sounds tragic and self-aware, but it may also be deeply evasive. Shakespeare
Othello (love is real, but it becomes possessive, unstable, and finally violent)
“She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d/ and I loved her that she did pity them” (1.3)
Othello’s marriage is not initially presented as lust, trickery or corruption, but as a
relationship built on emotional exchange. The repeated “loved” suggests balance and
reciprocity.
But Shakespeare also introduces vulnerability through the mention of “dangers”, suggesting
that they fell in love through storytelling, suffering and idealisation, not through domestic
familiarity.
If Othello’s love is built on emotional intensity and idealisation, then it is especially
vulnerable when that ideal image begins to crack, or when domestic life becomes the norm.
This suggests that love in the play is not false from the start but is vulnerably precisely
because it is idealized and emotionally absolute. This tension is what makes Othello tragic
rather than simply foolish.
“My life upon her faith”
“My life” is extreme – he places not just affection, but his entire being on her loyalty. The
exclamation makes sit sound impulsive and total. So even before jealousy begins,
Shakespeare shows that Othello’s love is built on total confidence rather than measured
knowledge. Their love is arguably real, but vulnerable because it is absolute.
“But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, / chaos is come again”
Develops the idea that Othello’s love is not simply affectionate, but it is structural to his
identity. Desdemona gives him emotional order. Without her, there is “chaos”. Shakespeare
presents Othello’s love as something dangerous and without middle ground. He doesn’t love
in a stable or ordinary way; he loves in a way that makes emotional collapse inevitable if
trust is broken.
If Desdemona is tied to Othello’s entire sense of order, then any suspicion about her
becomes more than marital doubt – it becomes a threat to his selfhood.
This supports the idea that jealousy becomes so destructive because Othello’s love is rooted
in emotional extremity, not resilience.
Othello is a tragic lover.
, “O curse of marriage, / that we can call these delicate creatures ours/ and not their
appetites”
This is where Othello’s love begins to curdle into possession. The possessive noun “ours”
shows that he no longer thinks about Desdemona as a person he loves, but as something
that should belong to him and remain controllable. This is a huge shift from the first quote.
It has become proprietorial. This is where Shakespeare reveals that Othello’s jealousy is not
just fear of betrayal – but it is fear of losing ownership.
Once love becomes possession, it can no longer tolerate ambiguity or female independence,
and this pushes Othello towards violence.
This suggests that love becomes destructive when it is tied to control rather than trust,
making jealousy inseparable from patriarchal entitlement.
Othello is shaped by a patriarchal culture that treats wives as property?
“Keep up your swords bright, for the dew will rust them” “O; blood, blood, blood!”
Jealousy is not just an emotion in the play – it is a force that deforms love into brutality.
At the start if the play, Othello’s speech is expansive, elegant, and controlled. “Rude am I in
my speech” Othello claims simplicity, but his speech is actually deeply persuasive and richly
poetic. Shakespeare deliberately established him as rhetorically powerful, so that his later
linguistic collapse becomes more tragic. By the time that jealousy fully takes hold, his
language becomes fragmented, repetitive, and primal. The poetry of love is replaced by the
rhetoric of punishment.
By the time that he kills Desdemona, Shakespeare has already shown that emotionally and
linguistically, Othello is no longer the same man.
1. Othello is psychologically destroyed by Iago
2. Shakespeare may be revealing what was always latent within him – that love and
violence were never fully separate for Othello.
“One that loved not wisely but too well”
Shakespeare ultimately suggests that one of the greatest dangers in love is the inability to
distinguish between devotion and domination.
His final speech still centers himself and romanticises abuse under the language of love?
Othello tries to interpret his downfall as the result of loving too much rather than loving
wrongly. It sounds tragic and self-aware, but it may also be deeply evasive. Shakespeare
