Readings of Othello
...s Othello himself react and deal with his double identity in the early stages of the play? B: Othello appears in the early stage of the play as a colonial subject who has absorbed European culture and morality, and has therefore domesticated the wildness implicit according to western views in his origins. Fully immersed in European culture, he’s seen as the noble other. Othello is accepted but not yet welcome in the Venetian Oligarchy. His action of marrying Desdemona then can been seen as his final step to fully assimilate into the Venetian Oligarchy and rid of his otherness. Othello is the perfect mimic man or colonial subject. While he feels ease within his adoptive culture, his own African culture remains absent. Othello does not reveal his origins any more than the travellers’ tales revealed about the real natures of the Africans. The play does not add anything new to the traditional image of Africa, and in this way reaffirms the familiar. A: So you’re saying that he was very capable of combining his “twoness” in order to successfully assimilate and become a hybrid? B: In the early stages of the play he seemed to be successful in emphasizing his difference in or der to win Desdemona and hence assimilating into the high class of Venice but as the story moves further it is Iago who opens the gap between his “twoness” and ultimately destroys him. A: What is Iago’s motive to destroy Othello? B: Under the light of post-colonial reading, Iago can be seen as obedient on the outside but racist and discontented to work under a black man on the inside. He is jealous of Othello’s power and authority. So he sets out to bring Othello down back to his basic and original form, Othello the moor rather than Othello the hybrid. In the earlier acts of the play, Othello was very dignified, honourable, composed and in control of things. But as soon as Iago implemented his plot to destroy Othello by feeding him with lies of Desdemona’s infedility Othello’s bridged together “twoness” started to weaken and eventually collapsed. Othello emerged as a man of intense jealousy with violent, monstrous like nature, which is basic to a black man as racial prejudicially stereotyped by the west. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” His inner black qualities of otherness hence surfaced. A more dormant and monstrous side of Othello has awoken. Overall, Othello is a discourse about a black man who tries to assimilate fully into a white oligarchy by marrying a white woman but eventually and gradually had his confidence as a European destroyed until only his Africanness remains. And here Africanness means savage. A: I see, so the post-colonial reading is saying that, a black man will never successfully assimilate into a white society. But, I view Othello from more of a feminist point of view. Firstly, men hold all the power in Venetian society. This reflects the patriarchal society of Shakespeare’s time. Women were seen as incapable of such positions. B: What about the male treatment of women in Othello? A: Much juxtaposition is used in Othello to highlight male treatment of women. Desdemona’s absolute devotion to Othello accentuates his cruel treatment of her, Bianca’s genuine affection for Cassio highlights his ridicule of her and Emilia’s obedience to Iago likewise underscores his hatred of her, and of all women. Each woman comes from a different social class, and each of them represents an aspect of “womanhood” –romantic idealist, practical realist and sex object, which significantly emphasises the male treatment of woman as been universal and blind. Women in Othello, are what men make them. Initially Desdemona appeared to be pure and chaste in Othello’s mind that he was madly in love with, but his image of her quickly turned into a deceiving whore. This illustrates an act of male dominance over women as women are only what man make them to be. B: Let’s start with the main female character Desdemona. A: Desdemona is innocent, pure, chaste and gentle natured, the perfect patriarchal role of a female. But at the beginning of the play, her action becomes very feminist. In her speech addressed to Brabantio she talks of a woman’s divided duty to father and to husband. She tells him that she owes him her education and life, she respects him and that she is his obedient daughter. And then she defies the traditional conventions of a patriarchal system by standing up to her father insisting that her now loyalty lies with her new husband and she loves Othello therefore her elopement is justified. At this point, her confident and resilient view in her speech makes her gender transgressive. Here is a woman who is standing up to her own father in a deeply patriarchal society. B: What about her relationship with Othello? A: Despite her sturdiness against Brabantio earlier in the play, she resumes the dutiful, loving and chaste wife role in a patriarchal view. Her absolute innocence of the act of adultery, love and devotion accentuate the degree of Othello’s mistreatment of her. B: Would you say that sh...