When realizing his folly, Othello, who told about his enslavement as a young man while wooing Desdemona, says he is enslaved once again, this time to the devil: "O cursed slave!/Whip me, ye devils,/From the possession of this heavenly sight!" (5.2). Othello also uses blackness to characterize evil, and goodness is portrayed as fair and light. But this does not necessarily support a racist reading of the play, the reading that Othello's true nature is coming forth. Rather, it shows that Othello is affected by racism, just as much as the other characters -- just like Brabantio who will accept a Moor as a guest, not a son-in-law, and just like Iago who can cunningly use Othello's race against the general he hates, even though his prejudices have more do to with personal vengeance than racism or a real disinterested critique of Othello's administrative style and capabilities. "Othello's 'Africanness' is crucial to his tragedy not because of what he is, innately or culturally, but because of how he is perceived, by others and by himself" (Berry 316). "Othello's blackness is not only a mark of his physical alienation but a symbol, to which every character in the play, himself included, must respond" (Berry 318).
However, one argument against this notion that the significance of Othello's blackness is due merely to its socially-constructed significance, not to its inherent evil as a signifier of the devil is Emilia's often unremitting racism, as seen after Desdemona's death when Emilia says "O, the more angel she, And you the blacker devil!" (5.2). Emilia, as manifest in her dialogue with Desdemona, is quite cynical and realistic, as opposed to her mistress' denial of the evils that men can do. She is often correct, and often racist in her instincts. This would seem to validate Othello's inherent brutality. Yet, on the other hand, Emilia's perspective on the world is also, always, fundamentally incomplete -- it is her blindness that results in her unwitting complicity in her husband's plot to trick Iago.
Goodness and racism are not incompatible in the play -- perhaps the most racist character is, ironically, Othello himself. Desdemona becomes a "black weed" when she is seen as unfaithful, and by implication he himself is a black and polluting influence upon her purity (Alderman...
Othello and Justice Like many of Shakespeare's plays, Othello demonstrates how emotion and a strict personal ethic can lead to tragedy. The play is filled with intrigue, mainly on the part of Iago, another trait of Shakespeare's plays, and the characters seem to twist around their own insecurities. Linking this play to a central theme is difficult because there are so many threads that could be taken as the primary driver
Iago paints for Othello not simply a negative picture of Desdemona, but of an entire society where men are cuckolded: "that cuckold lives in bliss/Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger...I know our country disposition well; / in Venice they do let heaven see the pranks/They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience/Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown" (3.3). Iago, ironically, even uses the fact
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