Role That Race Plays In Shakespeare's Othello

It is clear that Shakespeare portrays Othellos race as setting him aside in some respects from the predominantly bloodless European society in which he lives. Although Othello is respected for his military courageousness and nobility of character, he inhabits a culture in which thorough racial tensions, in particular anxieties about the mixing of races finished intermarriage, can be exploited. In Othello, racial stereotypes are both(prenominal) evoked and problematised. The racial divide between Othello and Desdemona is portrayed in advisedly shocking language: Iago tells Brabantio that an old black storm/ is tupping your white ewe (1.1.87-8). In calling Othello Barbary horse and black drive, Iago associates pruriency and animality with Othello and lightlessness. Yet as much as Iagos rhetoric, and Othellos induce later self-construction, makes Othello carnal, exotic or monstrous, he is also human and sympathetic, vulnerable to Iagos machinations part beca usage his difference makes him an easy target. Throughout the play, Shakespeare explores a rhetoric of blackness, but always with an ironic distance. When Desdemona believes that the sun has drawn onwards Othellos jealous humour (3.4.31), she refers to black bile, one of the four humours that were thought to affect human emotion.

Othello uses black to refer to Desdemonas fraught reputation, drab and black/ as mine feature face (3.3.390-1), and also talks of black vengeance(3.3.450). Yet, Shakespeare problematises the use of black as a negative signifier. Desdemonas respect is not in fact gloomy, because she is innocent, and only believed to be guilty by Othello; neither is Othellos face be grimed, since it is naturally dark. The asso! ciation of blackness with staining or dross recalls Iagos attempt to portray Desdemona as being pollute by Othellos love, and yet their love is strong and nutritive until Iago interferes. Black vengeance is associated with Iago himself before Othello seeks vengeance on Desdemona....If you wish to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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