Othello

Othello by William Shakespeare is a play about a black general who is alone in being black. No one else in either Venice or Cyprus is from Africa as the Moorish Othello is. In fact, with such a high position in the Venetian military, Othello appears to fit right into the role as general; his race is almost of an invisible quality. His race seems invisible because his nobility and the respect others have for him transcend the mistreatment that he might receive in being so physically different. However, this play is not free of racism or noticing race and its connotations. Othello does not truly have a race until he either manifests himself into his race or others choose to notice it. Thus, race is a latent quality in Othello, one not fully apparent until he gets too personal with the fair-skinned people around him and they reject him or he feels rejected and searches for reasons.

The important people in Venice replace the awareness of Othello’s race with the great respect that they have for him, which entails that Othello’s capabilities far surpass any racist feelings others feel for him. Iago, who is Othello’s false ensign, even says that he cannot outwardly appear to hate Othello because it would do nothing to get rid of him: each person in Venice needs his skills as a general. Yet, reading what Iago says helps to see what might be the common voice for the other fair-skinned characters in this play on how race and rank interact:

“To be produced …

Against the Moor for I do know, the state,

However this may gall him with some check,

Cannot with safety cast him; for he’s embark’d

With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,

which even now stand in act, that for their souls,

Another of his fathom th...

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...whose solid virtue

The shot of accident nor dart of chance

Could neither gaze nor pierce?” (67)

Lodovico questions Othello’s sufficiency, nature, and virtue. The senate obviously saw all of those things in Othello since they told them to Lodovico but Othello is much changed at this point in the story: he does not feel like the general so does not act like one and in turn loses all of his human qualities. The last step in the characters recognizing Othello for whom they expect him to be comes when Lodovico says “O thou Othello…wert once so good, [but] Fall’n in the practice of a damned slave” (89). The transition is smooth in Lodovico’s mind: he once was the noble general whose skills surpassed his limitations and now he practices the skills of what he truly is, a damned slave.