Weekly Response Three

“As a disabling virus within literary discourse, Africanism has become, in the Eurocentric tradition that American education favors, both a way of talking about and a way of policing matters of class, sexual license, and repression, formations and exercises of power, and meditations on ethics and accountability. Through the simple expedient of demonizing and reifying the range of color on a palette, American Africanism makes it possible to historicize and render timeless.”

-         Literary Theory page 1007

RODERIGO: “What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe

If he can carry’t thus!”

-         Othello (1.1.62-63)

IAGO: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram

Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;

Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,

Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.

Arise I say!”

-         Othello (1.1.85-89)

IAGO: “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter

and the Moor are making the beast with two backs.”

-         Othello (1.1.112-113)

Question: How did it come to be that the color black is generally associated with evil and white with purity and all that is good? Do the racial implications affect those associations or was this made with no connection to the different races?

Although through typical Elizabethan literature African Americans or those of color are portrayed as evil, Shakespeare goes against that norm and casts Othello, the man of color, as the hero. Othello is a man of nobility, honesty, and trust.  Therefore, Iago, a white male working for Othello, is able to deceive Othello and drive him mad.

There is no doubt that Iago is portrayed as a man who reaches the peak of evil doings. His manipulation and deceitful ways are constantly working to get him where he wants to be.  In Elizabethan writing, these characteristics would typically be displayed on a man of color. Is Shakespeare trying to be purposelessly ironic or make a political statement?