![]() Brabantio's anger clearly shows that blatant racial prejudice exists within Venetian society: yet the Duke of Venice's measured response to Othello's supposed crime also implies that racism within Venice is more subtle than Iago's language might indicate. His hatred of the general seems to run deeper than pure racial resentment, although he is certainly capable of playing on such ugliness such as when he shouts to Desdemona's father: "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/Is topping your white ewe" (I.1). Throughout the play, Iago will make various claims as to why he is extricating such terrible revenge upon Othello. This is because of the subconscious racism Othello has incorporated into his sense of self.Īt the beginning of Othello, Iago claims to hate the military commander Othello because the Moorish general has denied him a promotion. He ends the play entirely subsumed into the crude, devilish Iago's machinations. Othello begins the play a confident author of his own narrative who is able to woo Desdemona with his words and also the opinions of white men. ![]() Othello's assimilationist efforts to claim a selfhood within the Venetian community leads, for him, to a fatal hybridity" (Marks 101). This is why it is said that "in Othello, the boundary between Self and Other is famously, and perilously, permeable. Yet, by the end of the play, Othello's enemy Iago plays upon the Moor's insecurities and in fact tries to 'make' Othello into the barbaric creature whites accuse him of being. ![]() Othello's apparent nobleness, his military prowess, and his eloquence (despite his protestations to the contrary) all win him respect. The title character begins the play a great and esteemed general, despite the fact that he is a member of an 'othered,' despised race against which some whites have great prejudice. William Shakespeare's tragedy of the Moor Othello is the only major drama of the great playwright in which race plays a major role. Othello: The Tragedy of Internalized Racism
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