![]() In short, Shakespeare portrays every character as racist, even the most well-meaning ones. Even Desdemona, who cares for Othello most, often Others him by calling him “the Moor.” This undoubtedly because he’s racist-and because of the racist misconception that black men frequently abduct and attack white women.Īnd it’s not just Roderigo, Iago, and Brabantio who are racist- every major character in the play (sans Othello), expresses racist attitudes at one point or another. ![]() He believes that Othello must have coerced her through magic. ![]() Is there not charmsīy which the property of youth and maidhoodīrabantio, for his part, is appalled at the idea that his daughter has run off with a black man, and refuses to believe that she went willingly. ![]() “BRABANTIO: O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!įathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ mindsīy what you see them act. Iago describes Othello as a beast and equates him to the devil he indicates that Othello is both subhuman and evil. Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:” “IAGO: Even now, now, very now, an old black ramĪwake the snorting citizens with the bell, From this, we can infer that Iago is racist-and the rest of the play backs up this inference. In the very first scene, Roderigo calls Othello “thicklips.” Iago says nothing about the use of the slur-and in cases like these, silence is implicit agreement. The first few scenes of the play are perhaps the best examples of this. White people were believed to be superior in every way-more intelligent, more civilized, more innocent, more moral-and black people were believed to be inferior in every way-simple, savage, brutal, immoral, cruel, wicked, and subhuman. This accurately reflects the racist ideology of Elizabethan society. We cannot all be masters, nor all masters “IAGO: I follow him to serve my turn upon him: This makes others’ interactions with him seem sinister at worst, and patronizing at best-and either way like they’re only pretending to respect Othello as an equal or superior (and the text indicates that this is, in some cases at least, true). They aren’t seeing Othello as a person-more as a black series of accomplishments. They’re reducing him to his race, stripping him of individuality and personal identity. This is not only explicit Othering (they’re distancing him from themselves, marking him as Different in a negative way), it’s also incredibly dehumanizing. He is nearly always called “the Moor,” even when he’s being praised. In addition to specific instances like this, there’s a more casual, widespread example of racism in the play: Othello is rarely referred to by name. Whether or not this is the case, it can’t be denied that he feels the need to separate Othello’s goodness from his race, and directly implies that blackness isn’t beautiful. The duke is complimenting Othello here, but at the same time, he’s equating goodness and beauty with whiteness, which implies that he believes blackness is neither. Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.” The other characters express racist attitudes toward him-even when they are, on the surface, being respectful. The title character, Othello, is a General portrayed as equal to (or higher-ranking than) many other characters-but it’s clear that his rank is unusual, and he’s neither viewed nor treated as a true equal. Shakespeare’s Othello portrays this incredibly well. This system afforded white people more privileges and fewer obstacles (with regards to financial security, career advancement, personal safety, etc.), and they were seen as higher-class than black people, who had fewer privileges, more obstacles, and were seen as extremely low-class. She went so far as to authorize their forced deportation from England.Īs one might expect with such racist government officials, there was a concrete system of white privilege and racial discrimination in place, much the same as there is today-but to an even higher degree. Racism was so prevalent in Elizabethan England that Queen Elizabeth herself expressed distaste at the number of black people living there, and stated her desire for them to leave several times.
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