Othello †Racism Expressed in Words Essay -- Othello essays

Othello Racism Expressed in Words The Bard of Avons tragic play Othello expresses racism there is no doubt about this among most critics. However, to what degree to a vulgar extent? Or to an excusable level? In her book, E rattlingbodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard Mack comments on the audiences reaction to the black-white union in the play That a beautiful Venetian girl should fall in love with a veritable negro seemed to many an(prenominal) implausible, in fact monstrous. The words are Coleridges, but the sentiment was widely shared and, on the nineteenth-century stage, was increasingly taken into account by orientalizing the hero, making him protrude to be what one of the centurys best-known actor-directors declared he emphatically was not a negro but a stately Arab. (129) In the opening scene, while Iago is expressing his dislike, or rather hatred, for Othello for his having chosen Michael Cassio for the lieutenancy, he contrives a plan to p artially avenge himself (I follow him to serve my turn upon him), with Roderigos assistance, by alerting Desdemonas father, Brabantio, to the fact of his daughters elopement with Othello. Roderigo shares Iagos prejudiced attitude toward Othello What a full fortune does the thicklips owe / If he croup carryt thus The word thicklips is a disparaging reference to a facial characteristic of many members of the black race. David Bevington in William Shakespeare Four Tragedies describes how racism is obvious from the very outset of the play Othello is unquestionably a black man, referred to disparagingly by his detractors as the thick-lips, with a sooty bosom (1.1.68 1.2.71) Elizabethan usage ap... ...rsity. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No store nos. Wayne, Valerie. Historical Differences Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991. W itt, Mary Ann Frese, et al., eds. Black and White Symbols in Othello. The Humanities Cultural Roots and Continuities. Vol.1. Lexington, MA D.C. Heath, 1985. Rpt. in Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. The Engaging Qualities of Othello. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.