The Moor of Venice and Racial Prejudice
William
Shakespeare wrote Othello around
1603-1604 (Kernan xvii). Ania
Loomba says that:
For
at least the last two hundred years, ‘race’ has functioned as one of the most powerful
and yet most fragile markers of social difference. It is one of the great ironies
of imperial history that ideologies of racial differences have hardened as a direct
response to racial and cultural crossovers; conversely, colonial enterprises have
facilitated contact and exchange between people of different ethnicities, religions
and cultures. (203)
Shakespeare displays the significance
of race not only throughout the play, but also in the title itself, The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. Before the play begins, the audience is
signaled by the word ‘moor’. “We
know that he is black and a Moor; that the Elizabethans were inexact in their
use of the terms ‘Moor’ and ‘negro’” (Harris 23). Shakespeare uses the interplay of racial prejudice, and its
religious and social significance to craft the corruption of Othello’s
relationship with Desdemona. Iago
molds circumstantial and trivial events into a plan that leads Othello to
internalize his own racism and fester until it becomes the cause of his own and
Desdemona’s death. Shakespeare
uses the imagery of color and bestiality to add to the context of racism.
“The
literal presence of Othello’s black, male body, especially as defined in
relation to Desdemona’s white, female body, emerges as the crucial scene in
need of erasure in order to satisfy the fictions of a Western European cultural
order” (Little 310). From the very
beginning of the play, Iago exclaims to Brabantio that “you have lost half your
soul./ Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe.” (Shakespeare
1.1.84-86). Iago’s rough racial
depiction of the union of Othello and Desdemona presupposes Othello as bestial
and barbaric before Othello even enters into the play. “The three crucial structural elements
of Shakespeare’s play are Othello’s blackness, his marriage to the white
Desdemona, and his killing of her” (Little 306). The seemingly circumstantial evidence and the twisted
rhetoric that Iago uses to convince Othello of Desdemona’s betrayal is at the
same time compounded with the racial prejudice that Iago uses to convince
Othello of his blackness as the cause for her unfaithfulness. Othello says:
Haply
I am black
And
have not those soft parts of conversation
That
chamberers have, or for I am declined
Into
the vale of years—yet that’s not much—
She’s
gone. I am abused, and my relief
Must
be to loathe her. O curse of
marriage, (3.3.262-267)
Iago convinces Othello that
Desdemona is unfaithful through the molding of Othello’s perception of the
fairness of Cassio as ‘chamberer’.
Othello further detests his own blackness. “Cassio, like Othello, is a foreigner in the Venetian
community, but while Othello represents the sinister outsider, the Florentine
Cassio signifies a kind of white knight from abroad” (Little 314). Iago also uses stereotype of Venetian
women to further Othello’s distrust:
Iago says, “I know our country’s disposition well:/ In Venice they do
let heaven see the pranks/ They dare not show their husbands; their best
science/ Is not to leave’t undone, but kept unknown” (Shakespeare 3.3.201-204). Shakespeare implies that Venetian women
were reportedly disloyal to their husbands and very good at concealing it from
them. This becomes yet another tool
for the crafty corruption of Othello’s mind.
Shakespeare
uses imagery of color throughout the poem to display racial attitudes towards
Othello. From the beginning,
Iago’s use of the words “black ram” which leads to Brabantio’s accusations of
Othello using an implied black magic to woo Desdemona (i.e. “Abused her
delicate youth with drugs or minerals/ That weaken motion” and “corrupted/ By
spells and medicines bought of mountebanks”) (Shakespeare 1.1.73-74 and 1.3..61). Othello defends the claims that he used
drugs to coerce Desdemona into loving him when he says, “She loved me for the
dangers I had passed,/ And I loved her that she did pity them./ This only is
the witchcraft I have used” (1.3.166-168). The Duke says to Brabantio, “Your son-in-law is far more
fair than black” (1.3.285). The
terrible night in Cyprus can be said to be another form of blackness that leads
to corruption of the Venetians into the chaos of the Turks: Iago says, “Tis a night of revels” on
the “warlike isle” (2.3.41, 55). Othello’s acceptance of his blackness as
noted earlier in “Haply for I am black” leads to his distrust of Desdemona
(3.3.262). Othello internalizes
his own racism when he beseeches Iago for some proof of Desdemona’s
unfaithfulness: “My name, that was
as fresh/ As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black/ As mine own face”
(3.3.383-385). When Iago suggests
that he saw Cassio with the handkerchief that Othello gave to her, Othello
cries out for “black vengeance, from the hollow hell” (3.3.444). All of this use of blackness as a
symbol of defilement and corruption sets the tone for the monstrous conclusion
that Othello comes to by killing Desdemona and himself.
“Colour
here operates as a sharp dividing line between Chritsians and non-Christians”
(Loomba 208). The Turks looming
outside the play represent a chaos that could disrupt the order of Venice and
the Romans. “As Daniel Vitkus has
remarked:
What
has often been forgotten is that while Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Dutch
ships sailed to the New World and beyond, beginning the exploration and conquest
of foreign lands, the Ottoman Turks were rapidly colonizing European territory. Thus, in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the Europeans were both
colonizers and colonized, and even the English felt the power of the Turkish threat
to Christendom.
How does this doubleness affect the
English sense of global relations, and more specifically, its representation on
the English stages of the time” (Loomba 204)?
Great significance is placed on the
doubleness of Othello as Turk and Venetian. He is at once an essential tool and part of Venice and a
threat to the order of its well-structured society. Othello defines and is defined by the threat of the Turks in
Europe, and the English audiences of Shakespeare’s own time must have seen this
historical and cultural significance of Othello’s character. Can a Turk really be saved or at least
not thought to be a threat by turning to Christianity?
Cassio
notes that “Well, God’s above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there
be souls/ must not be saved” (2.3100-101). Later on in that scene, Iago adds “Are we turned Turks, and
to ourselves do that/ Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?/ For Christian
shame put by this barbarous brawl” (2.3.169-171). When Desdemona tells Lodovico of the problems between Cassio
and Othello, she says that she wishes to “atone them, for the love I bear to
Cassio” which sends Othello into a sort of hell: He shouts “Fire and brimstone!” (4.1.233-234). Othello later asks, “Are not you a
strumpet?” to which Desdemona replies, “No, as I am a Christian!/ If to
preserve this vessel for my lord/ From any other foul unlawful touch/ Be not to
be a strumpet, I am none” (4.2.81-84). Othello
is not only a Venetian and a converted Christian, but also a Moor who was once
a Muslim. Black and white corresponds
to Muslim and Christian. We are
reminded of Othello’s past when just before he commits suicide he says, “a
malignant and a turbaned Turk/ Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,/ I took
by th’ throat the circumcised dog/ And smote him—thus” (5.2.349-352). The tension in the play that Shakespeare
creates is that Othello is at once a part of the Roman Catholic Empire by
conversion and not a part of their world by ethnicity:
The
articulation of a religion which can be chosen and an ethnicity which cannot is
particularly complex in the case of the category called ‘Moors’. The Spanish derived
the word ‘moro’ from the Latin word ‘maurus’ which in turn came from the
Greek ‘mavros’ meaning black. But
they used it to designate their conquerors
who were not black at all but a mixture of Arab and Berber Muslims...
religious difference provides a vocabulary for the expression of racial difference. Here we see an instance of how religion
and ethnicity were expressed through
a vocabulary of colour. (Loomba 210)
Othello is portrayed as having
certain qualities of a Moor and of a Venetian. Iago’s plan is “to draw the Moor apart” exploiting this
dichotomy (2.3.385). His identity
is split between the Catholic Venetian world that he has been fighting for as
general and the barbaric Muslim world in which he was a prince of his tribe and
a slave once.
The
language used to define Othello’s nature is as two-sided as his own identity. Those people in the play that do not
succumb to racial stereotypes of Othello regard him very highly. Iago, on the other hand, uses prejudice
to convince the others to take part in his undoing. As Othello stabs himself in the end, he displays how he is
literally torn between a Venetian and a Turk. Upon seeing the approach of Othello and Brabantio to the
Senate in the opening act of the play, the First Senator refers to Othello as
“the valiant Moor” (Shakespeare 1.3.47).
Desdemona also does not share any racial prejudices when she defends her
love of Othello: “That I love the Moor to live with him/ [...] And to his
honors and his valiant parts/ Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate”
(1.3.243-249). Iago talks about
exposing Othello’s finer qualities to bring about his downfall:
The
Moor is of a free and open nature
That
thinks men honest that but seem to be so;
And
will as tenderly be led by th’ nose
As
asses are.
I
have’t! It is engendered! Hell and night
Must
bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light. (1.3.390-395)
In the next act, the Third
Gentleman speaks of the “warlike Moor Othello” who Monatano later defends as
the having a “good nature” and being the “noble Moor” (2.1.27 and 2.3.130-135). Desdemona looks at Othello’s ethnicity
as being a positive thing when Emilia wonders about Othello being a jealous
person:
And
but my noble Moor
Is
true of mind, and made of no such baseness
As
jealous creatures are, [...]
I
think the sun where he was born
Drew
all such humors from him. (3.4.26-31)
All of this evidence noted above,
shows the wide variety of attitudes and experiences of race in dealing with
Othello. “The military prowess of
the Moors, typified in the battle of Alcazar, coloured the drama of the day”
(Harris 26). Othello is at once
respected for his skill in matters of war, and thought to be bestial because of
that same skill combined with his blackness.
Othello
does not move from a glamorous black to a hated Turk: rather, we need to notice
how both blacks and Turks can be glamorized as well as hated in contemporary
representations, and how the two were interconnected, both in Othello
and in the culture at large, via the Spanish discourse on Moorishness, via medieval
stereotypes of black Turks, or Egyptians and also by more recent developments
in global relations. (Loomba 206)
The language used to describe
Othello throughout the play, expresses this split between the celebrated Moor
and the hated Moor. Othello cannot
prevent his own demise because the factors of racial prejudice and religious
aptitudes are constantly working against him in ways that he cannot see. He is innocent. If he had never met Desdemona, those
members of his army, namely Iago, would have probably found another way to
bring about his destruction. He is
at once loved and hated. Loved for
his skills and hated for his skin.
“The
absence or presence of racist attitudes inevitably determines one’s response to
Othello” (Orkin 166). The modern
audience has a different experience of the character Othello than the
Shakespearean audience. Today, the
modern world deals with the issue of race and its damaging effects in
retrospect to major historical events, such as slavery, the Civil-War, the
Civil Rights Movement, and the poverty and crime that has defined the modern
world in terms of the black experience.
If anything, the above argument shows how blackness took on different
cultural and religious meanings than it does today. The modern experience of blackness is a globalized one that
can only be understood with literature and the media’s portrayal of blacks
around the world. Modernity has
strived to move beyond differences of color and culture, yet the process is
still polarized in the ways in which we understand blackness. In the four-hundred years since
Shakespeare wrote Othello, have people in this world come any further in their
acceptance of different cultures, religions, and races? The best answer to this question may be
both yes and no. While people may
have a better understanding and recognition of the damaging effects of racism,
the overall effect that racism has on black people has not altogether been
bettered by the advancement of society.
Through Othello, Shakespeare speaks across the boundaries of time to
give a valid insight into the destructive force of racism, tearing people
between their own humanity and their racial difference.
Works
Cited
Harris, Bernard. “A Portrait of a Moor.” Shakespeare and Race. Ed. Alexander and Wells:
Cambridge 2000.
Little, Arthur L. “’An Essence that’s Not Seen’: The
Primal Scene of Racism in Othello.” Shakespeare
Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 3. Autumn, 1993. pp. 304-324. Folger
Shakespeare Library. Eckerd
College Library. 26 Nov.
2007. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037- 3222%28199323%2944%3A3%3C304%3A%22ETNST%3E2.0CO%3B2-J
Loomba, Ania. “’Delicious traffick’: racial and
religious differences on early modern stages.” Shakespeare
and Race. Ed. Alexander and
Wells: Cambridge 2000.
Orkin, Martin. “Othello and the ‘plain face’ Of
Racism.” Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 38,
No. 2. Summer 1987. pp. 166-188.
Folger Shakespeare Library.
Eckerd College
Library. 26 Nov. 2007. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037- 3222%28198722%2938%3A2%3C166%3AOAT%22FO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6
Vitkus, Daniel. Qtd. in Ania Loomba’s “’Delicious
traffick’: racial and religious differences
on early modern stages.” Shakespeare and Race. Ed. Alexander and Wells:
Cambridge 2000.
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