Shakespeare was aware of the fact that various races and civilizations were coming closer to each other. It was therefore essential that they tried to understand one another. Otherwise, there would always be vicious people to exploit this lack of understanding
IT is not a research paper but a short statement of an issue in Shakespeare. Black characters are not absent from the plays of Shakespeare. We find them in The Merchant of Venice, in the character of Morocco and in Titus Andronious in Aaron who is most probably a Negro.
But in Othello, Moor has been given the leading role in the play of that name. Othello is one of the best tragedies of Shakespeare and Othello is one of the most favourite characters with the actors who have been acclaimed as the most successful performers in the history of Shakespearean stage, from Richard Burbage, the famous renaissance actor (1619), upto Lawrence Oliver in the 20th century. In between, there have been such celebrated names such as Batterton of Queen Anne’s period and Kean.
Othello remained in great demand from 1591 to 1700. Fifty-six references are made to Othello as against 95 to Hamlet in contemporary literature. All this amply proves that the theme as well as the hero of the play have always fascinated spectators and thespians equally.
It is also interesting to note that while the other great tragedies of Shakespeare are either drawn from the world of fantasy or related to remote times in history, Othello is related to a contemporary situation. It is set in the backdrop of the Turkish attack on Cyprus in 1570. Othello was definitely written before 1604. Thus, the play related to an event which belonged to the living memory of the spectators of Shakespeare. The topical nature of the subject must have been of some special interest to Shakespeare.
Practically every critic of Shakespeare has talked of his humanism. The play opens not on the note of racial conflict, but with a happy episode — that of the marriage of Desdemona and Othello, and the personal intrigues of Iago woven around them. The most important thing is that of the two lovers never repented the marriage, although it met a tragic end. Obviously, Shakespeare has underplayed the racial conflict.
When the play opens, we see Iago extracting money from Roderigo for procuring Desdemona to him. Beside monetary benefits, Iago mentions other causes of his intrigues against Othello. He is jealous of the Moor who has got such a prominent position in a European state and also married a fair Venetian girl of the upper class. He feels that injustice has been done to him as a person of lesser merit and Cassio has been given precedence over him. Cassio is a foreigner, a Florentine, while Iago is a native of Venice. He even charges Othello of having seduced his wife. Thus, he imagines all possible causes of jealousy against Othello. But the critics are almost one in rejecting all these charges, as these excuses of Iago cannot be taken on his word. The most well-known remark comes from Coleridge who calls it Iago’s “motiveless malignity.”
The racial conflict has been underplayed by Shakespeare as well as by his critics. But their motives are different. Most of the critics attribute it to Shakespeare’s humanism that gave more importance to the noble soul of man than to the colour of his skin. But as we see Desdemona was not prompted by liberal humanistic ideals when she chose to marry Othello in the face of stiff opposition from her father, who failed to understand why she spurned so many proposals from persons of her age, status and clime. He strongly suspects that Othello had worked some spell upon her.
A black marrying a European maiden was unacceptable to the English audience. As Bradley remarks in a note to his lecture on Othello: “I will not discuss any further questions whether granted, that to Shakespeare Othello was a black, he should be represented as black in our theatres now. I dare say not. We do not like the real Shakespeare. We like to have his language pruned and his conceptions flattened into something that suits our mouths and minds. Perhaps if we see Othello a black with the bodily eye, the aversion of our blood, an aversion which comes as near to being merely physical as anything human can, would overpower our imagination and sink us below not Shakespeare only, but the audiences of the 17th and 18th centuries.”
Even a humanist and a romantic Lamb could not wholly endorse Desdemona’s choice. It is Bradley, again, who found people wished Othello to be dark or brown. There has been a lot of debate about the colour of Othello since the time of Cinthio (1565). Much material is available in English writings about the Negro element. We read of black, dark, brown or even “white or tawny Moore.” They are bracketed with the Mahumetans, barbarians and Arabs. These accounts are enough to create an aversion for the black in European minds.
Iago is not the only one who is prejudiced against Othello. Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, though an admirer of Othello, cannot bear that his daughter marries the black Moor. Even Emelia endorses this view that though adultery is “wrong, still if the price was high enough she could sell and so, she believes, would most women.”
The West has terribly misconceived the East and the western prejudice is beyond and measure of sense. I have myself seen a performance of Othello by Oliver in 1968, where Othello was shown writing like a hurt serpent, in great inhuman torture. This is not how any black or brown man will behave unless he is absolutely mad. But Shakespeare also underplays the racial theme. We can see it in his presentation of the Turkish assault on Cyprus. Before the conflict, a storm pushes the Turkish fleet back. So neither side can claim a victory. Instead of the racial rivals, it is nature that has triumphed.
However, Shakespeare did not underplay the racial issue which dominates the play and in fact is the theme of the play. Its first evidence comes when Brabantio goes to the court of Duke where Desdemona defends herself boldly while at the same time making it quite clear that she was no timid maid, as her father would have us believe. She is independent and her marriage to Othello is no sentimental falling of a delicate soul. Here, too, the racial issue becomes quite clear. Though her father charges her of filial disobedience, she actually asserts her right as a Venetian girl for the free choice of her husband. Iago later instigates Othello by telling him that Desdemona is fickle-minded and faithless. Since she can disobey her father, she can disobey Othello, too. Iago knows that in the tradition in which Othello was brought up, the free choice in marriage by a daughter amounted to the worst form of sin, a terrible betrayal. Desdemona also does not understand why her pleading for Cassio should enrage Othello.
Iago, like the devil himself, does not always tell lies. But his truth is more dangerous than a lie. He tells Othello in quite a matter-of-fact way:
“I know our country disposition well,
In Venice they do let God see the pranks,
They dare not show their husbands, their best conscience
Is not to leave undone, but keep unknown.” (III, 205-208)
Bradley’s remarks on the speech of Iago are significant:
“To represent that Venetian women do not regard adultery so seriously as Othello does and again that Othello would be wise to accept the situation like an Italian husband, is one of Iago’s most artful and most maddening devices.”
Shakespeare wants to show that Othello and Desdemona do not understand each other. Each is totally unaware of the values and moral responses of the traditions to which they belong respectively. And there are always vicious spirits around to take the advantage of this lack of knowledge.
Another and a more delicate situation is when Othello abuses Desdemona and strikes her and she mildly protests, “I have not deserved this.”
Lodevico, who is watching the whole scene, is shocked and protests. But Desdemona, quietly saying, “I will not stay to offend you,” leaves. Desdemona’s tears are not enough to convince Othello of her loyalty. He comes from a very hot climate and a civilization which is ancient, beyond the understanding of a civilization which is just emerging from the state of nature where sex is not all that important.
Chaucer’s pilgrim party is the prototype of the English, or for that matter the European society towards the end of the middle ages. It was more a conglomeration of individuals than a society. Even in the tales, such as the Monk’s Tale or the Nuns Priest’s Tale, too, there is no indication of a society in the sense of regulated human relationships or the purely human bond. All relationships are business-like. Filial or fraternal bonds are conspicuous by their absence. Relationships are impersonal. On the other hand, in the East, there is a strong bond of relationships. In our own society we have so many blood relationships for which in English there is only one word, uncle.
Othello belongs to a world which believes in the sanctity of relationships. That is why when he is going to choke Desdemona to death, he is not thinking of murder. He is only thinking of a sacrifice for the purification of Desdemona’s soul. Obviously, these two are different worlds. Desdemona’s is the physical world, Othello’s the spiritual. Mutual understanding was not easy.
The incident of striking Desdemona was a great shock to both Othello and Desdemona, which neither could justify. Desdemona, like a true western woman, as she says later, could not cry. She keeps her composure and avoids the ugly situation by leaving the scene rather quietly. Othello took it to be her shamelessness. He, as a tribal patriarch, expected Desdemona to fall on her feet and cry and appeal for mercy until it was granted or would have put an end to her life, as any oriental woman would have done in such a situation. To Othello, it was blatant insolence and unpardonable obstinacy. To Desdemona, it was a matter of the self respect of a free citizen.
Shakespeare has, thus, underplayed the racial conflict but not the racial issue. He was aware of the fact that the world had started shrinking and various races and civilizations were coming closer to one another. It was therefore essential that different races and civilizations tried to understand one another. Otherwise there would always be vicious people to exploit this lack of understanding for their nefarious ends.
Shakespeare also noted that western rationalism combined with Machiavellianism was marching on a path that led to total destruction. Western mind was moving towards an objectivity where it was developing, as in Iago, into all brain with no compassion. On the other hand, there was the other culture, represented by Othello, that was all passion with little rational control. Only a blend of the two could save the world. How true this appears today when all science and all technology have brought mankind to the brink of total disaster on the one side, and passion has taken the form of terrorism on the other.
