Kolb, Laura. “Jewel, Purse, Trash: Reckoning and Reputation in Othello.”
Shakespeare Studies, vol. 44, 2016, pp. 230–262.
In “Jewel, Purse, Trash: Reckoning and Reputation in Othello'' Laura Kolb says “In a mocking list of moral lessons to be drawn from Othello, Thomas Rymer writes, ‘Thirdly, this may be a lesson to Husbands, that before their Jealousie be Tragical, the proofs may be Mathemat-ical.’ The double-meaning of ‘proofs’ - both the demonstration of truth and the derivation of a mathematical theorem - underscores what will become Rymer's major critique of Shakespeare's play, A Short View of Tragedy,” (Kolb 1). Or in other words, when someone becomes jealous of their significant other, they should get proof of what they are jealous of. In this article, Kolb focuses on this idea of demonstrating Othello’s jealousy, and Iago’s ability to change people's minds, mathematically. Kolb first focuses on Othello as a partnership problem, before going into the economic language in Othello, and then it reflects on the story inlight if the possibility of romance. Kolb acknowledges jealousy as a normal human emotion and then breaks it down into its fundamentals. They think about the situation in a mathematical sense and logically.
Priscilla Adams
