Othello and Africa: Postcolonialism Reconsidered

Abstract

E VERY time I teach Othello, whether to graduate students or to undergraduates, I must always start question of racial bias and where that bias enters play and our readings of it. Must because, in my experience, majority of students assume that Othello's problems start in Venice, where, as Moor, he can only be outsider. There is, of course, evidence in play for this assumption. By end of scene one, Roderigo and lago have called the Moor (whom they never name) the thick-lips (I.i.66), an old black ram (88), the devil (9i), a Barbary horse (III-12), a lascivious Moor (I26), and an extravagant and wheeling stranger (I36), and have accused him of making beast two backs (ii6-I7) Brabantio's fair (I22) daughter, Desdemona.1 By end of scene two, Brabantio has joined vehemently in fray, to accuse thief' (I.ii.62) of practi~cing] Desdemona with foul charms (73) and drawing her to his sooty bosom (70), of being an abuser of world, practiser / Of arts inhibited and out of warrant (78-79). And in scene three, duke orders Othello to Cyprus to fight against Turks, as if happier to expend Moorish than Venetian blood. Yet although these expressions may suggest undercurrent of racial bias that makes them especially effective for underhanded personal and political maneuvers, that bias does not determine Othello's position in court or on stage. To contrary, racial epithets of opening scenes-the stereotypes that classify and condemn Othello as black manhelp place Roderigo, Brabantio, and lago outside polite society, vulgarity of their sexual imagery calling their otherwise respectable social and political standing into question.2 And, although Othello's commission may invoke European practice of hiring Moors as mercenary soldiers, that practice does not necessarily prove bias against Moor.3 In fact, duke also con-