Shakespeare's Othello: The Black Other in Elizabethan Drama

William Shakespeare's Othello, The Moor of Venice opens with a graphically violent image of sexual and racial distinctions, as Iago tells Brabantio "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe!" (1.1.89-90). Analysis of this powerful imagery focusing on the multiple meanings of the word 'black' can not only give insight into the prejudices and stereotypes of the past, but also provide answers to the question of why these racial conflicts have persisted for so many centuries as they continue to pervade the present culture. Othello contains one of the most powerful, controversial representations of the black Other in Elizabethan drama. The use of the word 'black' to signify both the Moor and an inherent evil informs readers of racial perceptions of not only the audience which consists of the characters around Othello, but also the greater audience of Elizabethan England. The portrayal of the Moor in Othello, oftentimes contradictory, reveals the dominant racial attitudes of the time period, and has continued to provide insight into shifting social conflicts throughout the centuries during which it has been performed. The question of Othello's true race has never been decided- evidence exists to suggest that the Venetian general was both an African and an Arab- but it is ultimately his status as a foreigner or outsider which truly instigates the racial repercussions of the play. This absolute otherness is implicit in the subtitle of the play itself (The Moor of Venice), which defines the character not in terms of his social role but solely in terms of race. Interestingly, despite his background Othello is initially considered honorable; it is only when race is connected with interracial sexual and marital unions that it becomes a heated emotional issue for the Venetians, and for audience members from the seventeenth century to the present day.

For Elizabethans, the identity of the 'Moor' was somewhat confused; the term meant Muslim or Arab, but was often interchangeable for African or Ethiopian. Shakespeare uses the word 'black' fifty-six times within the text of Othello, but even this descriptor held a variety of meanings and connotations in seventeenth century England. The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'black' as "Having an extremely dark skin; strictly applied to negroes and negritos, and other dark-skinned races; often, loosely, to non-European races, little darker than many Europeans" (sense I.1.c) According to this definition, then, the specific race of the Other is unimportant, as anyone with dark skin is excluded from the European identity. The numerous indications of color and race might imply an African identity to modern readers, but for the Londoners of Shakespeare's time they could have applied just as much to an Arab. Norman Sanders writes in his introduction to the text that "Iago's derogatory comparison of Othello to a 'Barbary horse' (1.1.111-112) would not be taken by any member of the Blackfriar's audience to be other than to an Arabian steed; and his scornful use of the term 'barbarian' (1.3.343) is exactly that used by Elizabeth's courtiers to refer to Abd el-Ouahed [the Moorish ambassador to Queen Elizabeth in 1600-1601] and his entourage" (14). This evidence certainly supports an Arab Othello, but fundamentally it is the status of the character as a dark-skinned foreigner who desires a white woman which provides the basis for his discrimination. While in modernity Shakespeare's protagonist would be called an immigrant, at the time Othello was merely an alien to Aryan Europe whose identity was defined by his extremely different physical characteristics.

Shakespeare's characters, including Iago, Brabantio, Emilia, Desdemona and even Othello himself evoke the word 'black' and its subtle stereotypes and meanings repeatedly. Iago's initial comparison of Othello to "an old black ram" (I.1.89) emphasizes the common perception of the bestial black. Blacks were seen not as men but as animals, and therefore lacking human reason and possessing base animalistic desires and urges. Furthermore, the use of 'ram' invokes horns, reaffirming the Elizabethan idea of the black devil. In Act I the Duke reassures Brabantio that his "son-in-law is far more fair than black" (1.3.286). The Duke implies the apparent irony of a black man who does not have a black soul; it is as if these two are inextricably linked, that outward blackness must signify inward depravity. It is noticeable that the Oxford English dictionary defines 'black man' as both "A man having black or very dark skin" (sense 1) and "An evil spirit; also, the evil one, the devil; also, a spirit or bogey invoked in order to terrify children" (sense 2). Perhaps it is this dual meaning that prevents Brabantio from being able to comprehend why Desdemona would "run from her guardage to the sooty bosom/ Of such a thing as thou- to fear, not to delight" (1.2.70-71). Brabantio is set in his prejudices of black people, and will not trust even his beloved daughter's judgment once it contradicts his own racist beliefs. His use of the word 'fear' reflects the notion of black people as savage and barbaric, but perhaps more derogatory is Brabantio's substitution of 'thing' for 'man' or 'person'. In calling Othello a 'thing', Brabantio strips the captain of his humanity, taking his agency and defining him as subhuman. Even Desdemona, the willing bride, feels that she must justify her choice of husband by telling the Senate that she "saw Othello's visage in his mind" (1.3.248). By claiming to see and hence love his brain and not his body, Desdemona reinforces the idea that loving a Moor needs validation and rationalization.

Iago is able to convince Othello that Desdemona's choice makes her unnatural in that she refused "many proposed matches/ Of her own clime, complexion, and degree" (3.3.231-2) and instead married a man before whose looks "she seemed to shake and fear" (3.3.209). Iago repeatedly uses Othello's physical blackness to symbolize some internal evil; Othello is constantly watched for signs of savageness, noted for his ability to inspire fear, and always inferior. When Iago convinces his lord of Desdemona's infidelity, Othello believes his wife's honor to be tainted, "begrimed and black/ As mine own face" (3.3.388-9). Othello, operating within the constraints of racist Venice, implicates his own perceived corruption through this simile. Othello's self-hatred occurs perhaps only because he must articulate himself in a culture which defines blackness as degenerate and depraved. 'Black' was also defined as "Having dark or deadly purposes, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly; baneful, disastrous, sinister." (OED sense II.8.a). At the beginning of the play, Othello contradicts this definition; Iago, in his inability to come to grips with this opposition, manipulates Othello and causes him to actualize this interpretation.

As seen above, certain characters within Othello seem to initially admire their Captain despite his status as an Other; he is depicted as noble, honorable, and distinguished. But the as soon as miscegenation enters the play moment Othello loses his agency and his respect. This reveals the superficial nature of Elizabethan tolerance, or at least its limits; Othello is acceptable as a leader of a white nation, but not as a husband of a white woman. These fears plagued audiences from Shakespeare's time to early American history. Mythili Kaul's essay Background: Black or Tawny? Stage Representations of Othello from 1604 to the Present discusses the discourse on whether Othello was an African or an Arab, and recounts different productions of the tragedy over the last four centuries. Kaul traces the shifts in the portrayal of the role of Othello as black or Arab, and links these performances to the attitudes of their historical contexts. According to Kaul, John Quincy Adams, the second President of the United States and a noted abolitionist, was disgusted at the prospect of interracial marriage in the play. Adams stated that had Othello been white, Desdemona "could have made no better match" (Kaul 6). This reflects the opinions of early American audiences, who saw Othello as potentially admirable but ultimately still lacking, a failure because of his color and subsequent inferiority. Because, according to Adams, Othello "had been a slave," [Desdemona's] feeling for him is not love but "unnatural passion." Nobody, Adams asserted, could sympathize with a woman who "born and educated to a splendid and lofty station in the community… makes a runaway match with a blackamoor". Hence Adam's satisfaction in his belief that "when Othello smothers her in bed she has her just desserts" (quoted Kaul 6-7). Audiences seemed utterly repulsed at the idea of interracial relations, especially marriage, as racist attitudes evolved and intensified over the years.

The Turkish invasion within the play underscores the single instances of racism towards Othello as it refreshes the ancient fear of barbarian hordes assaulting Europe. From a New Historicist perspective, the political and economic aspects of this threat help reinforce the fear of a demonic Other. Recent invasions of Cyprus by the Turks from 1570- 1573 were part of living memory for some of Shakespeare's audience. This anxiety, this fear of disruption of stabilized civilization, cause the Venetians in the play to use Othello as Captain to protect themselves against the danger that Othello as an Moor symbolically represents. These fears may have contributed to an Elizabethan form of racism; after all, the Oxford English Dictionary also defines 'black' from that time period as "Foul, iniquitous, atrocious, horribly wicked" (sense I.9). The question remains as to whether Shakespeare agrees with these beliefs, or whether he simply attempts to bring attention to the injustice of these indictments of color. "Martin Orkin has argued that during the Renaissance anti-racist sentiments were voiced, especially by Montaigne, thus mitigating a universal attack against people of color. Patrick C. Hogan goes so far as to claim: "Shakespeare, it seems, was not only aware but deeply critical of racial hatred and related forms of exclusion and oppression. He was pained by brutality of the majority toward minority groups" (Kolin 15). Whether Shakespeare sympathized with Othello may never be completely understood, but nonetheless it is important to recognize the impact of the play on racial discourse.

American productions of Othello, The Moor of Venice have provided much insight into the racial attitudes of American audiences from the nineteenth century to the present. Tilden Edelstein argues that Othello "dramatized American's 'racial reality' and 'racial fantasies' and helped American audiences 'define their own racial morality.' Although it engaged their racial attitudes at the deepest level, the engagement took place at 'the physical and psychological distance that the theater allowed.' Othello on stage was thus popular with directors, actors, and audiences alike because it provided an idea site for the enactment and observation of 'the real tragedy of America's racial history'" (Kaul 10). Reactions to performances of the tragedy have indeed been strong; during an 1882 performance in Baltimore a soldier on guard duty, "seeing Othello… about to kill Desdemona, shouted: 'It will never be said in my presence a confounded Negro has killed a white woman!' whereupon "he fired his gun and broke an arm of the actor who was playing Othello" (quoted Bate, 222)" (Pechter 12). John Quincy Adams used words rather than gunfire in his indictment of the play, stating "The great moral lesson of the tragedy of Othello is that black and white blood cannot be intermingled in marriage without a gross outrage upon the law of Nature; and that, in such violations, Nature will vindicate her laws" (Kaul 10). Perhaps even more telling that the audience responses to the play is that when American fears of miscegenation became a national phobia, the years from 1890 to 1920, the play was hardly ever staged (Kaul 11). However, reactions to the play were not always so negative; Edwin Forrest, one of the most notable American Othellos in the nineteenth century, gave such an impressive performance that it provoked "a refined and lovely young lady" to declare that 'if that is the way Moors look and talk and love, give me a Moor for a husband' " (Pechter 12).

The role of the Noble Moor was originally played in blackface, but Edmund Kean, regarded by many as the most memorable nineteenth-century actor of the part, adopted a lighter brown makeup, emphasizing his portrayal of Othello as a Muslim, but also reflecting American insecurities with blackness. It was not until the 1940's that theatres began casting actors of color in the role, most notably Paul Robeson, the first black actor to play at Stratford-upon-Avon, who asserted that Othello and race were inseparable. "It is a tragedy of racial conflict, a tragedy of honor rather than jealousy. It is because he is an alien among white people that his mind works as quickly, for he feels dishonor more deeply" (quoted Kolin 39). However, his portrayal was attacked by critics as being too primitive and caricaturized; several critics commented that Shakespeare had written the role for a white man in blackface to play.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, racial fear and revulsion prevented the powerful protagonist from inspiring the social change that the text most definitely insinuates is needed. However, in the 1980's and 1990's the play began to be used as a political tool to confront the issues of racial and sexual politics. A "post-colonial Shakespeare" production of the play in the final years of apartheid South Africa which cast a black South African Othello forced the racial issues into the political spotlight (Sanders 53). Modern productions which cast a white Othello, such as Anthony Hopkins and Patrick Stewart, have been criticized for their dismissal of the central issue of the text.

Tragically, despite Shakespeare's apparent intentions, despite his characterization of Othello as noble, proud, and complex, historical performance interpretations of the play have simply used the treatise on race to justify their own ideologies. Othello offers a series of revelations; for Europeans, the image of the outside Other, and for Africans and Arabs, the reflection of the Self constructed as an Other. The representation of the Moor in Othello reveals little of Arabic people and much of white society and its racial attitudes. While the white Iago is eventually recognized by Lodovico in the final scene as a "hellish villain" (5.2.364), his punishment is unknown to the audience, and it is Othello who has suffered in the end for being a so-called 'devil'. Shakespeare's text reveals the social conflicts of the time, and performance records of the play track shifts in racial biases and interpretations over centuries. Studying Othello provides insight into the role of the African/Arab as an Other to the West, and to the enduring nature of this Othering. Shakespeare's black/devil imagery causes modern readers to question their own moral centers and ask themselves why the dark Other is consistently seen as evil.