Othellos origin - Essay Example

Othello Some critics believe that Othello is dominantly a play about race and color. Shakespeare uses the symbol to show the worth of white and prove the discrimination against black. It will be unwise, however, to claim that it is solely with reference to the character of Othello because Iago, despite his color, had a black heart. Othello was a ‘Moor’, which applied to Arab and Berber people of North Africa who inhabit medieval Spain. There is a possibility that Othello belonged to the tribe of Moors who remained in Spain after the fall of Granada in 1492. Later, they were expelled in 1609. He could also be connected with the people of Barbary in North Africa. In the play, Iago calls him a ‘barbary horse’ (ActI, Scene I) with reference to the famous horses of Arab but also playing a pun on the word calling him a barbarian and a savage. There is likelihood that he did not belong to any of the categories and was simply a black African. This paper will trace Othello’s origin to show that he was not a native of Venice. Bradley, in his book on Shakespeare’s Tragedies, states that the evidence about Othello’s origins is “indecisive” (Bradley 2007). Features in Shakespeare’s portrayal of Othello seem to have been strained from all of the blacks who may have been in England during his time (Braxton 1990). To the Elizabethan mind, black was the color of the skin which depicted the Otherness of a person who had satanic predisposition and sexual pervasion. Hence ‘Blackness’ became a perpetual signifier of sin. ‘Moor’ is, thus more of, a metaphor in the play than a being (Vaughan 1994). These arguments that whether Othello was of royal descent and was not called an Ethiopian but a Barbary horse or not going to Mauritania, would be useless if Shakespeare did not understand the terms, ideas and knowledge used by modern critics. Othello is a Christian in religion. In one of his soliloquies, Iago speaks of Othello wanting to marry Desdemona even if he had to reject baptism. Historically speaking, this conversion to Christianity took place among many Moors of Spain. There was a reason why Shakespeare had chosen Othello to be a moor. Braxton takes the position that just like Shylock was chosen to fulfill the need in the dramatic structure of The Merchant of Venice, similarly Othello’s color “seems to derive from a specific dramaturgical requirement”. Hence, Othello was given black skin and thick lips to clearly distinguish from the native inhabitants of Venice. His problem is not with the community and the government at large. He has the respect of all the people around him. His only enemy is Iago. It can be believed that the dislike of Iago and Roderigo for Othello may be due to his color. In Elizabethan England, people with black skin were called wanderers. Othello is depicted as one of them (Braxton 1990). Recalling from the play when the ensign indirectly calls himself a spider, plotting against Cassio and Desdemona: With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio (II.i) Thus, Othello’s black skin is identical to the color of the spider’s most recurrent victim, the fly. The spider is not necessarily punished for this crime because the fly is the food it preys on. The play could have easily lost its charm, therefore, without the racial prejudice that exists for Othello. The relationship of Iago and Othello is not a bilateral one. Othello trusted Iago and Iago took advantage of this trust. “It is remarkable how many chief's sons there are in London today. And here is Shakespeare, knowing his audience, using this native English snobbery for his own purpose three and a half centuries ago. And my own feeling is that he takes more trouble to establish sympathy with Othello than he would if Othello were European and if Shakespeare did not expect prejudice.” (Mason 1962) Mason, a critic who writes about race prejudice in Othello rightfully states in the above lines, a mastermind like Shakespeare who knew his audience too well, established Othello’s persona to instigate sympathy with the black. Shakespeare’s moor is a sturdy and self-reliant person. He realizes the power of love too late but beneath the calm that he wears, his passions have depth and fire that makes him a unique character not found in any of the other Shakespeare’s plays. Iago identifies this quality of Othello: "The Moor is of a free and open nature That thinks men honest that but seem to be And will as tenderly be led by the nose As asses are.” (I.iii). In his “Introduction to Othello”, Walter Cohen states that the plot has been largely taken from Giraldi Cinthio's “Gli Hecatommithi”, a saga of love, distrust, and perfidy written in 1565. The original story is just the outer structure: a Moorish general is swindled by his ensign into believing his wife is disloyal. To Giraldi's story Shakespeare affixed sustaining characters like the narcissistic Roderigo and the despondent Brabantio; he reduced the time-frame and set it against the milieu of martial clash; and, last but not the least, he twisted the ensign, a negligible villain, into the artist of malevolence whom we know as Iago. One of the major issues that Othello portrays is the intermingling of Muslim religion and culture with the West. It was written just a century after Muslims were driven out of Spain. Hence, there is hostility within the play, regarding Othello’s Moorish-ness and his difference in religion and culture. Another reason for the play’s popularity as cited by the article is that it depicts to kinds of people who defied society in order to follow their instinct. Hence, it was most viewed during the European wars of the mid-19th century, the fall of Czarist Russia and during the World War II. The bond between Othello and Desdemona was sighted with greater sympathy (Cohen 1997). Othello was a Moor and this might be the reason why he did not understand the minds and the tactics of the deceitful people in Venice. His distrust for his wife might also be owing to his black color. Othello is respected by people but racism still persists in the minds of people like Roderigo and Iago. Iago considers his decisions to be wrong and Roderigo dislikes the notion that despite of the fact Othello is a moor; he won the love of Desdemona. He dies acknowledging he has "turned Turk," (V,ii.) and attempting to wipe out that fraction of himself. Thus, the otherness of Othello is an important characteristic that was chosen by Shakespeare for the play. Works Cited Bradley, A.C., Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, The Echo Library (Middlesex, 2007) pp. 95-132 Braxton, Phyllis Natalie. South Atlantic Review, Vol. 55, No. 4, Othello: The Moor and the Metaphor, South Atlantic Modern Language Association (Nov., 1990) pp. 1-17. Mason, Philip. Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3 (September 1962), Othello and Race Prejudice, University of the West Indies and Caribbean Quarterly pp. 154-162. Shakespeare, William, Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, Katharine E. Maus, and Andrew Gurr. The Norton Shakespeare: Introduction to Othello, New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. Voughan, Virginia Mason, Othello: A contextual history, Racial Discourse: Black and White, Cambridge University Press (1994) Chapter 3, pp. 51-70. Read More