The Making and Unmaking of a Colonial Subject: Othello
Taking as a starting point the fact that Othello’s colour is politically and ideologically relevant in the development of the play, this article offers a reading of Othello as a tragedy of race. The article reviews key texts where the stereotype of the black man as a “pagan conjurer” of beastly liv...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universidad de Zaragoza
1996-12-01
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| Series: | Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies |
| Online Access: | https://papiro.unizar.es/ojs/index.php/misc/article/view/11044 |
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| Summary: | Taking as a starting point the fact that Othello’s colour is politically and ideologically relevant in the development of the play, this article offers a reading of Othello as a tragedy of race. The article reviews key texts where the stereotype of the black man as a “pagan conjurer” of beastly living and monstrous sexuality crystallized, and traces the presence of the stereotype throughout the play. Othello’s condition as a black man—whatever shade of blackness he was—is further complicated by his condition as a colonial subject who wishes to adopt western culture. The play dramatizes the apparently unlimited possibilities of self-fashioning available to man in the Renaissance, only to deconstruct this optimistic self-fashioning or self-creation when race issues come into play. It is Iago’s exploitation of the politics of colour and of Othello’s double nature (proper to a colonial subject) that brings about Othello’s downfall.
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| ISSN: | 1137-6368 2386-4834 |