Othello’s racist projection
Othello, by William Shakespeare, has been known for a long time to be one of the four greatest tragedies of the playwright. Shakespeare characteristically transforms the story’s focus, thus rendering it much more multifaceted through the power of his appealing dramatic language.
The greatest general, Moore of Venice, is married to Desdemona. However, he claims that she is adulterous and kills her in a rage of jealousy after falling into Iago’s manipulations. Othello’s jealousy is a result of various facets, such as the constant manipulations by Iago.
There is a likelihood that Shakespeare was not interested in Othello’s psychology or Othello’s behavioral credibility. Shakespeare seems to be more interested in Iago. Contrastingly, when a black man appears for his play role, Shakespeare appears to address these issues. He wonders if he is allowed to speak his mind.
The race problems are linked since they encompass the implementation of an aggressive hermeneutic that creates the signs that the subject acknowledges as self-evident. In this way, observation turns on itself and results in Othello becoming deluded regarding his marriage and his identity. Othello imagines the infidelity by Desdemona and acknowledges it as the truth. With the prompting by Iago, it develops a blackness stigma in his mind, and he accepts the truth as well. In the process of all this, the viewers are forced to watch how the issue of the race starts developing out of delusion and duplicity. Consequently, this begs the question of their own prejudices’ validity, which the audiences acknowledge (Johnson 28). Therefore, when signs appear, the audience must ask themselves whether it is the case, or whether the viewers are projecting their ideas onto these signs.
If the play is approached with an open mind in the absence of obligation feelings, the audience will discover that Shakespeare’s play still speaks to them on a profound level, mostly because of the racism issue that is still plaguing society today. Othello remains one of the most memorable characters. Despite his language, he is a stereotype. In case a tragic end emerges because of Othello’s flows, it will be as a result of his flaws. It might also be emanating from the trauma that was initiated by his permanent outsider status.
Othello invites the audience to deliberate on their cooperation in implementing such status on others, right from individuals to entire groups that individuals choose to label as different. Shakespeare asks an uncomfortable query to which it does not offer easy or accurate answers. The play does not also leave the audience with clear guidelines for how to impact social change (Johnson-Haddad). However, Shakespeare asserts that seeing each individual as someone with whom one shares common humanity is a necessary promising and place to start.
Additionally, as Othello is confronted by racism, he manages not to fall into Iago’s whims for some time. However, he crumbles in Act IV. The issue of race occupies most of Othello’s discussions throughout the play. The discussions include a response to something a white Venetian claims, which prompts Othello to make his first negative reference to it. This may imply that his blackness is to blame for his conversation inability. It is a significant moment in the play and marks its turning point. The protagonist, Othello, has fallen victim to similar racist lucidity that rules the perception and views of other characters such as Roderigo and Iago. Like these characters, Othello intends to place his blame for his inferiority feelings somewhere. He ends up putting the blame on his skin rather than blaming Iago. Othello is at risk of believing all of the racist tones of Iago. The audience gets to see Othello comparing himself to a toad living in a dungeon. Thus, it seems that he has started becoming suspicious that his blackness makes him less of a human. On accepting that his race intrinsically makes him dangerous, Othello starts to think of the probability of being violent to his wife. Consequently, he starts despising himself. As a result, his hatred for himself permits him to kill what he treasures the most.
However, critics argue that the evidence about the race concept in Othello emanates from scanty evidence, which holds that both racism and race, operate in significant ways in Othello and his jealousy. They state that the play uses a few words about race. Furthermore, only one racist image appears in Othello in almost all the first four scenes. Critics contend that the views by Iago, Brabant, and Roderigo are misinterpreted as Venetian racism. The views of the Duke and other Senators have been ignored. The trial portrays the senators and the Duke enlightened on the issue of race. There is no pertinent facet correlating to racism, and race results in Othello’s jealousy. Critics argue that there is no racist language or image clusters regarding the crucial moments that precede Othello’s jealousy onset. In effect, the race issue lessened with age, and social grace arises later as a rationalization. Despite this, Othello dismisses his blackness when he reflects over the presumed infidelity of Desdemona.
The jealousy from Othello is as a result of Iago’s exploitation of the ambiguous intermediaries’ role in chivalrous love relationships. The literary intermediaries’ history engaged in wooing on another individual’s behalf, but betray their initial objective is part of the chivalric knights’ disposition. As portrayed in the play, Iago, who is scheming to make the courtship of Cassio his basis of revenge, exploits the role of Cassio in the courtship, the instance Desdemona discloses it. Iago convinces Othello to view himself as an ill-matched husband deceived by an intermediary that is more suitable than himself. Iago tries to take Othello away from his view of perceiving himself as a victorious chivalric knight whose actions have won an attractive lady with the help of an intermediary narrating his story. Literary history explains the jealousy exuded by Othello and its immediate onset in terms that are familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Critics conclude by stating that imposing contemporary race and racist views in the play reduce the play. It also offers minimal lessons on racism and race in Shakespeare’s day or the audience’s.
Conclusion
Othello’s racist projection offers many readers a focus point to scrutinize the issue of race in the play.