Racism In Othello

William Shakespeare’s plays all form a similar structure of a tragic, romantic story that concludes only in a remorseful ending. However, Shakespeare achieves this structure and morbid ending in Othello in a much differing way compared to his other plays. The play, Othello, is a tragedy resulting from racism, which ultimately ends up leading to the main character Othello and his wife’s demise. Othello, the lead character in the play, is a brave soldier from Africa who is the supreme commander of the Venetian army. Although he holds such a mighty and powerful position in society, it is evident that due to his race, the people of this traditional Venetian society, including his soldiers whom he commands view him as inferior. They address him
not by his name but rather with disparaging nicknames such as “the Moor” or other more directly racist words. The inherent racism towards Othello by the characters in Shakespeare’s novel demonstrates the racism present during the time Othello was written during the 17th century as well as makes it easy to understand why Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays ever written.
The play itself is dominated by Iago’s voice. He is the only one in the play who speaks to the audience and his racist descriptions and viewpoint of Othello is a major part of how the story is told. In the description choices for Othello, there is always an element of savagery and a lack of civilization that is infused into these descriptions despite Othello’s high ranking social position and civilized manner. In the opening scene, before the reader is ever given a clue about the identity of Othello, there are only references by Iago and others to Othello through images of animals and beasts. “Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul; Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is topping your white ewe. “(Shakespeare i.i.90) Iago is telling Brabantio that he has been robbed and his heart is going to break almost like half of his soul is going to be ripped out. Iago continues by explaining that even now at this very minute an old black ram is having sex with his little white lamb. This passage spoken by Iago makes a comparison to the colors of the ram in relation to skin color as well as good versus evil. Iago is depicting Desdemona as the “white” lamb who symbolizes purity and innocence, which contrasts to Othello who is depicted as the “old black ram” which symbolizes evil and corruption. Through this vivid imagery Iago lays out to Brabantio, he is implying that Brabantio is getting taken advantage of by Othello and that he is not fit to be with her. This imagery is relevant because it demonstrates a perceived parallel during the 17th century between black men and animals; that they are not fully human, and thus undeserving of the humanizing use of a name instead of such images.
Early in the novel, Iago reveals to Brabantio that his daughter, Desdemona has married Othello. Even Brabantio, the father who’s daughter has Othello’s heart, has an utterly skewed perspective on racial equality. He resorts to his racism when he discovers that his daughter is in love with Othello. Brabantio states, “For if such actions may have passage free, bondslaves and pagans shal our statemen be.” (Shakespeare i.ii.100) Brabantio is saying that if we let crimes like this happen, slaves and heathens will be our rulers. Brabantio does not consider blacks as true men but merely “bondslaves and pagans” that have no place in white society. Brabantio’s racism is so extreme that he cannot fathom how his daughter could love Othello and automatically assumes Othello has tricked her and put her under a spell and is therefore committing a crime. “Of such a thing as thou-to fear, not to delight. Judge me the world if ‘tis not gross in sense That thou hast practiced on her with foul charms. Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals that weakens motion.”(Shakespeare i.ii.74) In this passage, Brabantio is stating that Othello is something to fear not to love. And that it’s obvious that Othello has corrupted the purity of Desdemona by tricking her through the use of drugs or kidnapping. Emilia is Iago’s wife as well as Desdemona’s maid; she is a woman of practical intelligence and emotional resilience.
Initially, she follows Iago in her wifely duty, but as the play progresses, she develops a strong loyalty to Desdemona and Othello and despises her husband Iago. However, even Emilia in her state of extreme loyalty to Desdemona and Othello reverts back to her racism to explain what has happened when she discovers what Othello has done to Desdemona. Rather than simply being enraged and distraught, and perhaps criticizing his actions, she relates this back to race and roars at him, “O, the more angle she, and you the blacker devil!”(Shakespeare v.ii.8) This is yet another example of people in this Venetian society classifying the color black with evil and wickedness contrasting to the color white which is supposed to symbolize purity. Emilia is an example that racism takes roots deep into Venetian society during the 17th century, and that even she, who is an ally of Othello, has racist thoughts present in the back of her
mind. Without this deep underlying atmosphere of racial prejudice in Venetian society demonstrated in the play, Iago’s scheme would never have worked.
Even Othello himself is not fully aware how deeply this prejudice has penetrated into his own personality. It is an insecurity that roots itself into him to the point that he himself even believes the racial prejudice directed towards him; He begins to believe these negative societal views of himself to the point where he questions whether he is worthy of having someone such as Desdemona and whether it is possible for somebody such as Desdemona to truly love him. This insecurity that Othello has within himself continues to enlarge through Iago’s lies ultimately leading him to killing
Desdemona. The moral lessons and reactions to this play previously were not what would have been expected currently during the 21st century. After watching the play being performed in 1786, Abigail Adams wrote to her sister “I could not separate the African color from the man, nor prevent that disgust and horror which filled my mind every time I saw him touch the gentle Desdemona.” (americantheater.org) Also in 1835, her son John Quincy was also put off by the inter-racial relationship between Othello and Desdemona, arguing “the great moral lesson of the tragedy of Othello is, that black and white blood cannot be intermingled in marriage without a gross outrage upon the law of Nature.”(americantheatre.org) Coming from a more modern viewpoint on racial equality, we would like to think that Shakespeare was in fact writing Othello with a moral lesson towards racial equality in mind, however, Shakespeare refrains from making any commentary against the racism that was present during the novel. It does not seem too likely that Shakespeare was taking any stance on racial prejudice rather than entertaining the audience with a storyline that would captivate them with it’s seemingly taboo and abnormal story. Although Shakespeare’s intentions might not have included advocating racial equality, the racial prejudice that is present in Othello is demonstrated to be an accurate depiction of how Venetian society was during the 17th century when Othello was written. This depiction of Venetian society in Othello is supported by the documents and letters of people’s reactions to Shakespeare’s play Othello such as those letters previously mentioned. Because Othello gives us an accurate depiction of Venetian society, we could use this play to give us a deeper insight onto the class structure and prejudice that was present during this time period.