Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and
Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Johannes Gutenberg
University Mainz, language: English, abstract: This term paper seeks to
dislocate traces of racism within the characters of Iago, Othello, and
Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello". By scrutinizing both overt and
covert forms of xenophobia, it tries to explain how and why the play
came to its tragic ending. In 1994, Nelson Mandela wrote in his
autobiography that "no one is born hating another person because of the
color of his skin, or his background, or his religion" and that,
consequently, "people must learn to hate". By itself, this is a simple
statement but it is also egregious in the way it makes us understand.
There is nothing it could not explain, no dispute it could not
illuminate. And even though Mr. Mandela had originally formulated his
statement with regard to Apartheid, it fits extraordinarily well to
racism in Shakespeare's "Othello". Judging from Michael Neill's
investigations into the subject of notions of human difference in early
modern societies, 16th century Venice had a considerably open attitude
towards foreigners of any kind, with a great deal of cultural exchange
taking place between people of every colour and every religion. By the
beginning of the 17th century, however, this started to change: as the
number of encounters with foreign cultures increased, "color emerg[ed]
as the most important criterion for defining otherness" (Neill). As
Mandela would have put it, Venetians started to learn hating others in
behalf of their skin colour. And precisely this kind of development is
illustrated in Othello: the Moor, who is actually a prime example for
successful integration, has to endure an increasing degree of enmities
and discriminations as racist sentiments begin to emerge in Venetian
society - sentiments even Othello himself cannot resist.
