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OTHELLO

as a story of black and white  

Othello, the Moor of Venice   was written by Shakespeare and published in 1565. The primary source of Shakespeare’s Othello   is the short story by Giovanni Battista Giraldi (Cinthino) from the Hecatommithi collected stories. But in that story Iago is the villain who falls in love with Desdemona and thinks that she is in love with Cassio (‘Lectures on Shakespeare’, W.H. Auden). However, Shakespeare transformed this story into a drama about a noble black general, Othello, who falls in love with and marries Desdemona, a young white daughter of a senator. There is no doubt that Othello   can be seen as a story of black and white. Perhaps, black versus white would be more accurate: the reader faces the classical battle between the deceitful forces of evil and the innocence of good.  

The interesting point about Othello   is that this is the play where nothing is what it seems. It opens with soldiers Iago and Roderigo talking about their general, whom they do not name but describe as an unfair leader, and a savage. Later we learn that Othello is nothing of the sort but is, in fact, a skillful commander, a distinguished citizen, well-educated and civilized, and also, that he was baptized. The only real reason for Iago’s hostility is his jealousy of Michael Cassio, whom Othello promoted to the position of lieutenant, instead of Iago who had desperately wished to get the post for himself. Iago goes as far as to accuse Othello of sleeping with his wife, Emilia. In reality Othello did nothing of the kind, so it ends up as just another of Iago’s illusory justifications of his hatred.  

 

Rodrigo says that Othello must have used magic to woo Desdemona because she would not have married the Moor of her own volition. It is important to note that people of colour were associated with witch craft and devilry in the 17th century, thus giving Rodrigo’s claim a noticeable weigh in the eyes of the Elizabethan audience. But the truth is that Desdemona loves Othello for his courage. When she admits to loving her new husband, Iago in a short leap of logic concludes that she is herself a wild, promiscuous woman. In other words, Desdemona is seemed to be disgraced by her own tender feelings.  

Shakespeare portrays Othello’s race as setting him and those who like him apart from the white European society in which he lives. Although Othello is respected for his military prowess and nobility of character, he is criticized for the miscegenation. The racial conflict in the play is superficial: people cannot find a fault with Othello other than the colour of his skin, so that is his race that becomes the target of their judgment. Actually a man of any race could say, “There but for the grace of God, go I,” if he were in Othello’s situation. But Shakespeare writes Othello specifically as a Moor to escalate his isolation from the rest of Venetian society and to display his vulnerability due to his colour. At the same time it is white Iago that represents villainy and should be shunned by society. Shakespeare, defying expectations, dressed the good in black, painting evil as white. Thus he teaches us not to take things at face value, and to challenge received stereotypes. Whereas a black person would normally be used in Elizabethan literature to represent the darkness, which was associated, according to Christian symbolism with sin, death, and sexual depravity, Iago's absolute evil takes on that role. It is Othello who dotes on his wife whereas Iago humiliates and abuses Emilia. It is Othello that does not lie to anyone and believes his supposed friend. Ironically, the Venetians feel the Turks are their only enemy, while in fact Iago is in hindsight the one man who destroys their stable state.  

 Othello and Desdemona by Alexandre-Marie Colin  

The whole play seems to question people’s prejudices. Characters that are expected to be evil, wicked or sinful are actually victims. One might actually suspect (and some characters heavily imply that this is actually the state of affairs) a young woman to realize her mistake in marrying a much older man of a different race and to become unfaithful, but Desdemona is representative of the good in human nature. She is forgiving, honest, innocent and blissfully unsuspecting. Nevertheless Othello, because of Iago’s slander, believes that Desdemona is deceitful and impure, although she is really blameless. Iago works upon the tragic flaws of Othello. He plays on Othello’s fears about his status as a black Moor: Othello is already insecure about his place in the Venetian society, but to face losing Desdemona love to a younger white male is just too much for him. He clearly shows that he sees Desdemona’s love, faithfulness and submission as criteria for his manhood. Iago insists that Desdemona will repent their marriage. Unfortunately Othello has a tendency to take everything he sees and everything he is told at face value without questioning the circumstances. Iago strengthens Othello's views of honesty and trust towards him by saying ironically, "Men should be what they seem; / Or those that be not, would they might seem none!" Iago wonders why someone would pretend to be something they are not, while that is exactly what he is doing. And since Othello lives in the world that is essentially sexist, it is not a choice for him whom to believe, Desdemona or Iago. Finally, Othello, brimming over with lies invented by Iago, murders his wife. This way he enacts a racist stereotype of the black men as violent, savage and uncontrollable. His ultimate tragedy is in having been able to choose otherwise, but succumbing to the fate others were foretelling at the beginning of the play.  

 American actor John Edward McCullough (1837-1885) as Othello  

As Desdemona represents light and purity, one might argue that her murderer is intrinsically a representative of evil. But Othello is only an instrument in Iago’s hands, so it is Iago that ends up being the main villain of the play, though he would like everyone to believe differently. Gradually his malicious nature becomes apparent even to himself. At one point Iago lashes out with the statement ‘hell and night / must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light’. Not only does this outburst show Iago's contempt for Othello, it clearly shows the ironic switch of colour once again as he refers to himself as hell and night, while Othello is the world's light. At the end of the play Iago even says "I bleed, sir, but not killed", this is his final statement that shows his belief in evil and that he thinks he is the devil. But even he suffers from the role-reversal in the play: it is Emilia, the woman he trusted to be always on his side, who discloses the secrets about his machinations.  

To sum up, Othello   is a story where nothing happens as we are told or expect it to happen. One might anticipate that love will conquer evil, but it is love that is the source of Othello’s problems. All three women of the play are accused of being "whores" but we never get any proof of it. The man that almost every character calls honest turns out to be the biggest liar and schemer. In Othello   the light fights the dark, and the dark prevails. But we can take a certain lesson from it to be able to avoid the characters’ mistakes: beware the black that disguises itself as white. 

 

The 2nd year BA student
Olga Kostereva
group 096.
 



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William Shakespeare:

«The purpose of playing <…> both at first and now, was and is to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure».  

(Hamlet. Act 3, scene II.)