racism Flashcards
In Jacobean England, there was a lack of familiarity with black people as the population remained mostly white.
This created a preconceived notion of the ”exotic“, whereby those who were ethnically/racially different were intriguing yet dangerous, causing a fear of ‘otherness’
Exploration of black vs white race
black could
refer to both morality and race; white stood for purity and innocence, and black was the
antithesis.
For example, the quote “when devils will the blackest sins put on” (Act II Scene III) explicitly confirms the association in the audience’s mind between morality and blackness because the very worst sins are the very “blackest”. This association of blackness with evil is one reason
why Othello and his ‘otherness’ are feared by white Venetian society.
Christians and Muslims
It is set against the backdrop of the ongoing wars between the Christian Republic of Venice and the Muslim Ottoman Empire which raged throughout the 16th century and this is another key aspect of the play’s religious elements.
prejudice against foreigners
had particular fears about marriages between black men and white women. They commonly believed that the offspring of such unions would be monsters.
past histories
In the Renaissance, many Christians viewed Moors with suspicion because they considered them heathens, like the Turks. There had been a long-standing conflict between the Muslim Ottoman Empire (The Turks) and the Catholic maritime states of Europe.
racial prejudice linking to biblical context
Christian traditions of the Renaissance suggested that Africans were descendants of Noah’s son Ham, who was cursed by his father. Thus, making them an accursed race.
Early modern English texts referred to Turks as ‘barbarous, cruel, despotic, tyrannical and sexually voracious’
leading to a fear in Jacobean England that the Ottoman Empire would spread to Western Europe and corrupt British values.
by the end of the play Othello has become the very things feared by the Venetians/Jacobeans
This can be interpreted as racist as Othello is portrayed as animalistic and barbaric as a result of his race, or potentially as exposing such attitudes and how cruelty is not determined by race but rather characters (Iago, a Venetian, acts ruthlessly and deceitfully)
