Otherness in Othello

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Otherness in Othello

Othello was set in Venice, a matter that matters more than what the reader of the play would initially suspect. The importance of the setting is not so much centered on the fact that most characters would be Venetians, but that the protagonist is a Moor. It is this distinction that would color the narrative and enhance the drama felt and faced by the characters of the play. The differences between Moor and Venetian are differences no longer relevant to us. Nevertheless, they were divisions that divided the old world and the world of Othello.

Moor was a generic term for people who resided in Africa. Throughout history, it has been used to refer to a number of different races that Europe came in contact with during and after the 16th century (Malieckal 302; Bartels 434). The 16th century saw the unprecedented expansion of intercultural interaction between the known Eastern and Western worlds. As such, the Renaissance gave way to the restructuring of the perceptions within the Western world taking into account new cross-cultural parameters and social texts, and this includes political understanding of the discourse of ‘native’ and ‘foreign’. Before and early into the Renaissance, Europe found itself perpetually embroiled in a war with Eastern nations, including the Byzantine Empire and the nations below it (Madden). The crusades were partly the reason for this, but also part of the cause: political and religious agendas of existing religio-political institutions at the time helped directed European projects for conquest that motivated further interaction between the two worlds. Malieckal states that the word Moor, then, was more than just a racial description of peoples in the East: it was a label attached on Europe’s foreign enemies, to some suggesting “political and theological enmity” (302).

We see this same kind of enmity portrayed in Othello: in several places, Othello’s ‘moorishness’ was called into play as indicative of his nature, his passions, and his identity in general. For example, Iago emphasizes Othello’s difference as a pretext for his hatred for the man: he calls Othello “…the lascivious Moor” and “the old black ram” (Othello 1.1.124; 1.1.91). Othello, too, was aware of his own race, and of his conflicted identity as a foreign man in a foreign country: “Haply, for I am Black, and have not those soft parts of conversation” (Othello 3.3.268).  But note that those descriptions do not imply a mere awareness of racial difference; they have added cultural assumptions about the racial category of Moor. That Othello was aware of the inferiority of his own station, or at least of the lower esteem placed on his category as Moor, says a lot about his character, which will not be explored in this paper. However, Zerba points to and describes his precarious station and internal conflict, or rather his doubt about his own person, that ultimately pushes him to mistrust others, even his Desdemona: “as an outsider become insider, a Muslim become Christian, a Moor become Venetian general, Othello must negotiate between them in narrative, since the bridge they form is tenuous and in need of continuous reaffirmation” (17). It was his ambiguous identity that lent to his exoticism to other characters, and to Iago, his monstrosity (18).

But if the Moors were enemies, what were the Venetians? The setting of the play, of course, was Venice; 16th century Italy was currently embroiled at a war with the Turks, which they labeled Moors as part of their narrative of otherness (Malieckal 302). Venice was a veritable hub of cultural progressiveness; it started the trends that would eventually become characteristic of the Renaissance movement. Venice was at the heart of the enlightened West and represented it in the text. Tsomondo describes this as a plot device to shape Othello’s conflicted drama and his own character. Othello’s ‘moorishness’, in a sense, is meant to contrast and highlight his newfound civility; his position as general in Venice, in command of Venetians, is indicative of the crowning heights of his achievement, and the plumb line measuring the depths of his fall—a staple in Sophoclean drama (Kirkwood 16-17). According to Tsomondo, the story is set against the backdrop of a dichotomized discourse between civility and barbarism—Venetians, of course, represent the former. Othello subsequently revolves around the discourse of the ‘civil barbarian’ who provides “an acceptable, reassuring profile… of the controlled, safely exploitable space that he does and must inhabit” (17).

Tsomondo also notes how characterization in Othello is affected by cultural perceptions about race. The play Othello was created in between works featuring deeply introspective characters and protagonists like Macbeth, King Lear and Hamlet. The protagonists of these plays were undoubtedly European in origin. Tsomondo mentions how they “all involve their audiences in moments of intense moral reckoning and philosophic contemplation” (8). But not so with Othello; who is not given moral or philosophical depth. He

does not experience those ennobling moments when with lyric intensity the protagonist faces a personal crisis and gains and imparts insight into self and the vicissitudes of human life. In Shakespeare, the soliloquy is one means of bringing the hero closer to the audience; it magnifies and at the same time humanizes him (8).

Instead, what we see Othello’s portrayed within his dilemmas in “personal or general humanistic terms” (6), a common Western trope in depicting the Other, whose values and preferences cannot be completely known, and perhaps need not be known. In fact, as Tsomondo notes, it was Iago, Othello’s ensign and main antagonist, who was perpetually engaged in soliloquizing, and therefore, in moral and philosophical equivocation. In fact, it was through his monologues that he develops his reputation for “astuteness and impressive intellectual capabilities” (8).

What becomes clear from all of this is the narrative of otherness that consistently reaffirms itself throughout the text. Venetian as a cultural identity in the play serves as the chief focus of identification and empathy; it is the core of Othello’s newfound morality, and the core of Iago’s racially-driven hatred. One can say that it is the primary driver of the plot, in that sense. Further, it is through Othello’s redefined position as a foreign body that has been broken to suit Western tastes, the audience develops an ambivalent relationship with the character, instead of succumbing to a typical repulsion.

Works Cited

Bartels, Emily C. “Making More of the Moor: Aaron, Othello, and Renaissance Refashionings of Race.” Shakespeare Quarterly 41.4 (Winter 1990): 433-454. Print. 

Kirkwood, Gordon MacDonald. A Study of Sophoclean Drama. New York: Cornell University Press, 1958. Print.

Madden, Thomas F. “The Real History of the Crusades.” The Association for the Renaissance Martial Arts. n.d. Web. 16 April 2014.

Malieckal, Bindu. “Muslims, Matriliny, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream: European Encounters with the Mappilas of Malabar, India.” The Muslim World 95.1 (April 2005): 297-316. Print.  

Tsomondo, Thorell Porter. “Stage-Managing ‘Otherness’: The Function of the Narrative in ‘Othello’.” Mosaic 32.2 (June 1999): 1-25. Print.

Shakespeare, William. Othello. n.d. Web. 16 April 2014. <http://shakespeare.mit.edu/othello/full.html>

Zerba, Michelle L. “Modalities of tragic doubt in Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Philoctetes, and Shakespeare’s Othello.” Comparative Literature 61.1 (2009): 1-25. Print.