Desdemona's Xenophobia In Othello

In Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice (1603), the issue of whether Othello’s weakness lies only in himself, and not in the xenophobia or malice of others, is one that is enmeshed in a great deal of complexities due to the extenuating circumstances which can be seen to deeply impact the protagonist’s sense of self throughout the course of the plot. Furthermore, these extenuating circumstances do indeed involve the xenophobia and the malice of others to a large extent. For example, there is racial prejudice that Othello is subjected to within the play’s chronotope – a Venetian setting at a time where foreign ethnicities are very much seen as the inferior ‘other’. Thus, with Othello being a Moor of African origin, he
This hence leads to another set of his conflicting traits; he is both credulous and suspicious albeit with the wrong people. He falls for Iago’s cunning trickery (3.3), yet is dismissive of Desdemona’s pleas of innocence and Emilia’s protestations (5.2). His prejudice thus causes him to be a “gull” and a “dolt” (5.2.170) for Iago’s malicious intent, with the antagonist taking advantage of his “free and open nature, / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so” (1.3.381-382). Furthermore, Othello’s gullibility towards Iago’s lies can be attributed to the way that Othello is a creator of fiction himself, with the protagonist indulging in dishonesty when it suits him so. This makes him susceptible to Iago’s suggestions and enables the “monstrous birth” (1.3.386) of his jealousy as he creates his own erroneous fiction of his wife’s infidelity from Iago’s insinuations and merely circumstantial evidence. Indeed, Macaulay asserts that Othello “actively interprets Iago’s violation of the maxim of quantity” (272). Through this weakness, Iago is thus able to create “a simulated world to transform Othello’s perception, and ultimately his sense of himself” (Oatley 21). This is evidenced when
As Macaulay states, “Shakespeare’s Othello has provoked extensive interpretive response because at the heart of the play a man murders his wife in a state of jealousy largely of his own creation, abetted by a villain whose own motives have been queried” (259). At the end of the play, Lodovico does indeed address Iago’s part in the tragedy, saying to the ensign: “O Spartan dog, / More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea! / Look on the tragic loading of this bed; / This is thy work” (5.2.372-375). Consequently, Neely claims that there are essentially three interpretive positions with regard to Othello (cited Macaulay 259). Macaulay explains, “Some critics exonerate Othello of any blame, others see Iago as an honest realist, and a third camp sees Othello and Iago as sharing responsibility as well as aspects of personality” (259). As such, the change in Othello’s temperament can be seen as a form of possession by Iago, with the antagonist “afflicting Othello with what he himself feels” (Cohen 2093). Indeed, from the start of the play, Iago is aligned with the devil as he states: “I am not what I am” (1.1.65), in a reversal of the bible rhetoric in which ‘God’ identifies himself to Moses. Similarly, the juxtaposition of Othello’s conclusion that