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For many years, people have associated Shakespearean plays with racial prejudices, mabe in an effort to determine whether Shakespeare was a racist or not. Shakespeare’s use of characters of color has raised controversies an curiosity on what role does race contributes to his plays. It should be noted that racism or the belief that one’s race is superior to another was already observed in 16th century Europe. It was during this time when Europeans become increasingly engaged with people of different racial origins through greater trade with Asia and Africa and the discovery of the New World. The crusades, for instance, have greatly contributed to the interaction of Europeans with the people of Middle Easr and Northern Africa. These military expeditions by Europeans that attempted take the Holy Land from Islamic rulert spanned two centuries did not only result to the deteriorating relationship between Christian Europe and the Islamic East, but also has a racist impact on both cultures as each one formed their own opinion towards each other (Housley 189). However, the issue of race during the time of Shakespeare is, arguably, not as degrading as the concept of racism is in today’s context. In fact, scholars observed that most Europeans view people of color with fascination and curiosity more than they view them with animosity or resentment (Bartels 434).
The Moors, in particular, have a rather obscured reputation in the English society. As observed by scholars, “While blackness and Mohammedism were stereotyped as evil, Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory” (Bartels 434). In understanding Shakespeare’s Otheloo the question of race cannot be ignored primarily because the main protagonist, Othello, was described as a Moor. Moreover, there were certain lines in the play that suggests racial insults such as when Iago referred to Othello as a ‘Barbary horse’ and that by letting Desdemona marry Othello, Brabantio, Desdemona’s father is going to taint his bloodline with Moorish blood, which Iago compared to a horse (Othello, The Moor of Venice 10). As stated by Iago, “you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll have coursers for cousins and gennets for germans” (Othello, The Moor of Venice 10). It is quite easy to confuse that these lines reveals Shakespeare’s racial prejudice towards blacks. But looking into the context of English culture during the Elizabethan era, it would appear that Shakespeare’s racially charged statements in
The Moors are known to have originated in North Africa. According to historians, the name Moors came from the Greek word, ‘maures,’ or the Roman word, ‘maurus,’ which means ‘dark’ (Van Sertima 4). The Moors, however, are often differentiated from Black Africans by referring to them as tawny or light-skinned. Some scholars believe that Shakespeare’s Othello is not black, but a Caucasian Moor that may have originated from Barbary, a region in North Africa that includes “modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya” (Othello, The Moor of Venice 232). Some historians trace Moorish roots from the intermarriage between the black Africans of North Africa and the Caucasian Semites of Asia, specifically the Libyans whom they have attacked and defeated during the reign of Menes, an Egyptian monarch at around 3000 B.C. (Van Sertima 5). Accordingly, the light-skinned Libyans intermarried with the Black Egyptians to become the “tawny Moors” or “white Moors” (Van Sertima 5). The Moors are also called by the name ‘Berber,’ which was derived from the Roman word, ‘barbari’ or barbarian (Van Sertima 5). The barbaric reputation of the Moors, however, was counterbalanced by their interesting culture. It should be noted that the Moors had a flourishing civilization. In fact, historians believe that the Moors have been constantly intruding Southern Europe since 1000 B.C. and even dominated the Iberian Peninsula during the 7th and 8th century (Van Sertima 1). At the peak of their power, the Moors have placed the Iberian region, specifically Spain under Islamic rule (Othello, The Moor of Venice, xviii; Van Sertima 4). The eventual defeat of the crusaders by these Arabic and Islamic people increased the Moors reputation in Europe It is also well known in Europe that the Moors were not only fierce fighters, but also had “vast knowledge of art, architecture, medicine, and science, much of which they inherited from the Arabs and ancient Greeks” (Othello, The Moor of Venice xix).
Othello first of all must be first be conceived on the basis of performance in the context where the play where is being performed. Shakespeare’s intentions regarding the role of Othello, the character being either directly and purposely racist is almost nearly irrelevant. Race and blackness as categories as they are conceived of today or in the nineteenth century or today did not yet exist. The play as it was watched by audience in early seventeenth century England would have not have perceived its racial undertones. That is exactly what Michael Bristol argues in his article “Race and the Comedy of Abjection in Othello.” Bristol claims that according to our sensibilities it might be “distasteful” to think of “Othello as kind of blackface clown.” (Bristol) In fact when Shakespeare wrote the role, he didn’t write for a black actor but instead with some sort of make-up or other costume. (Bristol) Instead Othello’s origins are little more than a theatrical covering and what actually matters are his “Moorish origins” which are “the mark of his exclusion, as a cultural stranger, he is, of course, ‘out of it’ in the most compelling and literal sense.” (Bristol 9) Othello thus becomes the locus for ridicule and the outlandish personification of a groom and husband. (Bristol) Charles Lamb expands on this idea of the importance of race and color in the performance of Othello.
Theater in an art form of representation, although the words are very important and they do carry more than some meaning for analysis by scholars. It is easy to forget that half of the interpretation of race and racism. In the course of the nineteenth century when “institutional racism was naturalized by recourse to a "scientific" discourse on racial difference " the issue of Othello’s skin color and his portrayal became much more of an issue. (Bristol) Othello’s representation on stage as “coal-black” Moor. (Lamb) The difference of the portrayal in the mind and on the stage of Othello. On the stage “when the imagination is no longer the ruling faculty, but we are left to our poor unassuming senses, I appeal to every one that has seen Othello played” regardless of the fact they had imagined his color or not that “he did not find something extremely revolting in the courtship and wedded caresses of Othello and Desdemona.” (Lamb) Shakespeare most certainly did not have any kind of racist or racial agenda in mind when he wrote Othello and created a situation where a black man, a “Moor” whatever that may mean was married to a white woman. When interpreted by a nineteenth century observer like Charles Lamb the issue of race and race-mixing becomes a much larger issue. Racism was something that was institutionalized by modernity, the Enlighten and Imperialism and was instrumentalized in the course of the nineteenth century.
Yet another part of the play that became much controversial after certain attitudes regarding race and other categories. It is indeed the final scene of the play where Othello kills Desdemona in bed. The mere fact that both characters where in bed and Othello was black character only played up anxieties regarding race and sex. Furthermore, during the course of the nineteenth century it became the practice for the actor to close the curtain on the bed in order to hide the murder from the audience. (Neill) One nineteenth century critic said “The consummation should take place behind the curtain and out of sight.” (Neill) This concern with what seemingly sexualized language of the bed and its implications with race. The connection between sex and race in the case of nineteenth century performances of Othello made the bed a symbol. According to Neill “the bed was so intensely identified with the anxieties about race and sex stirred up by the play that it needed, as far as possible, to be removed from the public gaze. Yet the effect of such erasure was only to give freer play to the fantasy it was designed to check. (Neill) Othello’s character is undoubtedly a symbol for a particular from of European fear of the Oriental “other.” (Neill) Race as it is conceived of now was not a factor when Shakespeare wrote Othello but it did become an issue when its racial undertones were exposed to an audience living in a different ideological environment.
Race and racism is not a partitcularly significant factor in Shakespeare’s Othello as written for a seventeenth century audience. It only becomes an issue when performances and interpretations of it are transferred to a time period where modern conceptions of instittuonalized racism become relevant. Othello, the “Moor” in the nineteenth century is either portrayed as “coal black” or as a much lighter-skinned Arab in either context he still represent the “other” and the “Oriental” invader into Europe. Michael Neill points out that one of the “terrifying things about Othello is that its racial poisons seem so casually concocted” as though as it was something that Iago came up with a random set of prejudices and superstituions. (Neill) Race is an important category and the way that people react to Othello and his race is very telling. Race in theater also underlines the simple fact that ultimately every social category is to some extent “performative” and the choices made regarding how to portray certain divisive scenes and the character of Othello himself demonstrates that very well.
Works Cited
Bartels, E. Making more of the Moor: Aaron, Othello, and Renaissance Refashionings of Race. 1990. March 2016 http://npproseminar.pbworks.com/f/Bartels,%20Making%20More.pdf
Bristol, Michael D. “Race and the Comedy of Abjection in Othello.” Shakespeare, William, and Edward Pechter. Othello: Authoritative Text, Sources and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2004. Print
Housley, N. The Crusades and Islam. 2007. March 2016 <http://users.clas.ufl.edu/ncaputo/euh4930-08/articles/hously.pdf>.
Lamb Charles. Othello’s Color: Theatrical vs Literary Representation. Shakespeare, William, and Edward Pechter. Othello: Authoritative Text, Sources and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2004. Print
Neill, Michael. "Unproper Beds: Race, Adultery, and the Hideous in Othello."Top of Form Shakespeare, William, and Edward Pechter. Othello: Authoritative Text, Sources and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2004. Print.
Van Sertima, I. Golden Age of the Moor. 1991. March 2016 <http://www.thegoyslife.com/Documents/Books/49153823-Golden-Age-of-The-Moor-Ivan-Van-Sertima.pdf>.
Shakespeare Wiliiam Othello, The Moor of Venice. 2005. March 2016 <http://www.emcp.com/previews/AccessEditions/ACCESS%20EDITIONS/Othello.pdf>
