Critical Response
Question
Support
G.K. Hunter’s claim that “[t]he dramatic function of Iago is to reduce the white ‘reality’ of Othello
to the black ‘appearance’ of his face” nicely captures the sense in which Othello’s action
continually moves between concealment and revelation (258). As I will go on to demonstrate,
concealment and revelation also govern the play’s sexual dynamics. [And so on.]
Summarizing a Relevant Chunk
As G.K. Hunter has argued, Shakespeare presents a “traditional” view of unpleasant “Moorish”
qualities (“gross, disgusting, inferior” and so on). He gains his audience’s assent only to
undermine that presentation with the actual appearance of Othello, a dignified and glamorous
hero. Accordingly, Hunter argues, Othello appears as a man “that we have wronged.” Our initial
belief in Iago’s mischaracterization of Othello makes “us” both complicit with Iago and Iago’s
victims (255).
Using Counter-Argument and Counter-Evidence
While G.K. Hunter argues that Shakespeare presents (and then undermines) a traditionally
negative view of Moors, [Scholar X] argues that Moors were not, in fact, the victims of the kind
of prejudicial thinking Hunter describes (Hunter 255, X 312).
Logic
If Othello is, as Hunter argues, “a play which manipulates our sympathies, supposing that we
will have brought to the theatre a set of careless assumptions about Moors,” (256) then it is not
clear how Othello has continued to enthrall modern audiences in an age when the term “Moor”
signifies virtually nothing. The continuing success of Othello suggests that Hunter’s emphasis
on the prejudicial mindset of Shakespeare’s audience, and Shakespeare’s manipulation of that
mindset, requires reappraisa


Solution
How an audience in Shakespeare’s time might
have understood Othello’s race and what racial difference might have signified
A critical look at the play Othello depicts it partly as a tragedy of
racism. Throughout the dialog within the play, it is certain that racism was an
issue at the time. In the play, most of the racism critics have been directed
to Othello who is a character in which the play has been named after. Othello
is a brave soldier who is from Africa but is currently the supreme commander of
the Venetian army. Nearly all the characters have used a racial slur that has
been aimed to insult Othello at an instance within the play. Numerous articles
have been written evaluating the use of race within the play Othello. However,
there have been minimal studies that have been conducted to examine whether the
depiction of race during the setting of the play Othello is still the same with
the modern world. On the other hand, there have been articles that have been
published asserting that how people in early modern Europe attributed
significance to the skin is not the same way as people perceive racial
difference within the contemporary society. Therefore, this particular essay
takes an in-depth study and analysis to explore and address how an audience in
Shakespeare’s time might have understood Othello’s race and what racial
difference signified at the time.
Basing on how Othello relates with Lago in the play, it can be asserted
that during the time in which the play was written, the audience in
Shakespeare’s time understood racial difference in terms of appearance and
reality. G.K.
Hunter claims that “Othello may be ‘the
devil’ in appearance but it is the ‘fair ‘ago who gives birth to the dark
realities of sin and death in the play” (282). The author goes on to explain
that the relationship between Othello and Lago has been developed basing on the
notions of appearance and reality. In most instances within the play, it is
seen that Othello tries to be more concerned about the reality of things while
on the other hand, Lago is more interested in the appearance of things.
Therefore, it can be said that the audience in Shakespeare’s time evaluated
Othello’s race and racial difference, in general, basing on the appearance and
realities of their surroundings. This means that black people defended their
race by using the realities within their surroundings to showcase that they
were better and deserved to be treated like others while the whites judged
everything that was done by black people basing on their appearance.
Contrarily, the race is differently perceived in the contemporary society.
Within the contemporary society, a racial difference emerges through isolation
whereby those who perceive their race to be superior isolate themselves from
the others. This was not a typical thing during the time of Shakespeare as they
frequently interacted but the difference was in how they talked.
Michael
Neill asserts that “Since Coleridge, arguments about
race in Othello have almost invariably been entangled, more or less explicitly, with arguments about culture in which
gradations of color stand for gradations of “barbarity,” “animality” and primitive
emotion.” (393). This view though different from Hunter’s perception, it also insinuates
that there were varying racial perceptions during Shakespeare’s time. According
to Neill, the race was being judged based on culture, and this insinuates that
the audiences during Shakespeare’s time have perceived a racial difference
regarding individual’s personality whether calm or barbaric, humane or
animalistic and primitive. According to Neill, what the contemporary society
perceives as a race might not have been perceived the same. Deducing from his
description, there was no class difference among different races Shakespeare’s
time as it is perceived today.
Shakespeare presents a racialist
view of his characters during the time. Kwame Anthony also supports this notion asserting that “racialists
believed that the racial essence accounted for more than the obvious visible
characteristics-skin color, hair on the basis of which we decide whether people
are, say, Asian-Americans or African-Americans. However, Hunter argues that
black people might be bad in appearance but in reality they are far much better
than the people of color. Appiah goes on to support his notion asserting that
“For a racialist, then, to say someone
is “Negro” is not just to say that they have inherited a black skin or a curly
hair: it is to say that their skin color goes along with other important
inherited characteristics” (276). From Appiah’s depiction, it is evident that
people during shakespeare’s time were stereotyped regarding black people. They
believed that black people were evil and bad and nothing good can come from
them since their evil characters had been inherited and not acquired (Orkin
170).
In conclusion, the issue of
racism was there since the time of Shakespeare. However, the manner in which
people during Shakespeare’s time perceived race and racial differences is not
the way in which race is being viewed currently. However, there are several
similarities since the color is as a result of inheritance and this was the
same thing even during Shakespeare's time. However, the hatred and
primitiveness that was associated with race during Shakespeare's time do not
exist in the contemporary society.
Works Cited
Hunter, George Kirkpatrick. Othello and colour prejudice. Oxford
University Press, 1967.
Lentricchia, Frank, and Thomas McLaughlin, eds. Critical terms for
literary study. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Neill, Michael. "Unproper Beds: Race, Adultery, and the Hideous in
Othello." Shakespeare Quarterly 40.4 (1989): 383-412.
Orkin, Martin. "Othello and the" plain face"
Of Racism." Shakespeare Quarterly 38.2 (1987): 166-188.



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