Many centuries have passed and almost everything has changed except one and that is discrimination . Discrimination is everywhere in the world, whether it is of caste, creed or color but it exists. It varies from place to place, country to country and from civilization to civilization but it exists. There are so many laws to stop it. But, it exists and it will exist no matter how hard we try to abolish it until there are a majority and a minority of people in imp this world. In
Othello there is discrimination with Othello on the basis of his color and in The Importance of
Being Earnest there is discrimination of class with Jack. In Othello there are many references to
Othello’s race, not only by Iago, but by other characters as well. Same as in The Importance of
Being Earnest there are many references related to the class used by characters. In both of these plays characters are more responsible for discrimination and authors are also the contributors for discrimination in plays.
In Othello racism starts from the first scene of the play where Iago is angry about the decision of Othello and then Iago starts talking to Roderigo in that conversation he says about
Othello that “I⎻⎻God bless the mark!⎻⎻his Moorship’s ensign”(1.1.32). Again Iago comments about Othello “whether I in just term am assigned To love the Moor?”(1.1.38-39). Afterwards, when Iago and Roderigo went to Brabantio’s house Iago uses racist words when he wakens
Brabantio with the news that his daughter, Desdemona has eloped with Othello “an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!”(1.1.88-89) and he also compares him to the thief.
This is not the first time, Iago is pointing Othello’s color he again points out about Othell...
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...allowed to marry Gwendolen because he is of lower
class according to her mother, Lady Bracknell. As we all know that there are many laws to
control discrimination, but that laws are useless because now discrimination has become the
common ideology of every person. We have to remove this thought. We all are equal and have
equal rights to live. Color and class are all decided by the god, not by us. Although, we all are
just the puppets of God, we should live peacefully.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Michael Neil. Toronto: Oxford UP,
2008. Print
St. Rose, Marjorie. "Race and Patriarchy in Othello" The International Journal of
Bahamian Studies 11. 2008, 25-32 .Academic Search Complete.Web.12 March 2014
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Ed. Samuel Lyndon
Gladden. Broadview Press. 2010. Print
...ate a plan to bring Othello down. Iago literally regulated Othello throughout the play like a puppet. He projected racist beliefs into Othello’s psyche (Adelman 144). He made Othello so hesitant and frail about his race that he loses his own life and killed his wife. Othello’s blackness turns into a powerful vehicle for Iago (Adelman 140). Iago was just driving Othello all around Venice causing chaos.
After hearing Iago speak, Brabantio has had his eyes open to a new perspective of the situation. Iago then begins to uses a new manipulative strategy, he starts using bestiality to describe Othello.
Orkin, Martin. “Othello and the “plain face” Of Racism.” 2nd ed. Vol. 38. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 166-88. Shakespeare Quarterly. Folger Shakespeare Library in Association with George Washington University, Summer 1987. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. .
In the Sixteenth century, as we see clearly from Othello and other works of both Shakespeare and Cinthio's original version of Othello, race was a topic of great debate and discussion. Today, in the twenty-first century the debate retains its controversy and passion. However, attitudes towards race have taken a dramatic turn during the last century. In the developed world people are now living in an increasingly cosmopolitan society would undoubtedly be more tolerant and would reject or even be offended by racial discrimination to any person or sections of the community. Openly 'racist' people today are seen as outcasts. Taking this into account, the way a modern audience would react to race and racism in Othello is dependent upon the way in which that modern audience would interpret 'Othello'. This prompts the questions of what sort of message Shakespeare wanted to send to his audience and was Othello the moor portrayed as a tragic hero or did his character eventually come to resemble the prejudices of which he was a victim. Shakespeare also discusses the issue of race with other characters such as the hateful Iago and the prejudices hidden deep in Barbantio.
Racial prejudice against Othello is introduced early in the play and is present throughout. Iago and Roderigo approach Brabantio with news about his daughter Desdemona. They inform Brabantio his
The potential problems of their relationship are exploited fully by Iago, who plays on Othello's fears - his insecure position in a white society with a white wife, and his strict adherence to that society's norms as regards a wife's passivity and sexual behaviour--to get him to see through listening. That is, Iago uses words to twist reality and create mental images for people, and then persuades them to accept these as true. Listening to Iago is indeed dangerous.
Insulting Othello, by referring to him solely by his race, Iago begins to show his machiavellian nature. When Othello is needed by Iago to fulfil his plans, he acts as though he is his friend. Iago has no qualms about his deceitful actions. In order to rile anger in Brabantio, he wakes him with the news that his daughter has married Othello:
...erent colours of costumes in Othello immediately sets him apart from the rest of society, highlight his dark skin colour and establishing he is not like the other characters.
In Act 1, Scene 1, Iago effectively uses racism to turn Brabantio against Othello. He is the catalyst of all the destructive events throughout the play starting from the very beginning. Iago uses viciously racist slang to enrage B...
Everyone at some point in their lives attempts to convince someone to behave certain ways and to do specific things that ultimately will only benefit the person doing the convincing. Throughout the entire book, Othello, Iago attempts to convince numerous people in order to in the end only benefit and help himself. In this scene, Roderigo is explaining to Iago how he no longer wants to love because he is without Desdemona’s love. Iago then focuses on convincing Roderigo not only out of suicide, but also into getting Desdemona back. If Iago was unable to encourage Roderigo to go back after Desdemona, his plans would have been ruined. In lines 296-395, Iago uses many different uses of language in order to convince Roderigo to do what he wants him to do.
Little, Arthur L. “’An Essence that's Not Seen’: The Primal Scene of Racism in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly 44.3 (1993): 304-24. JSTOR. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
The audience at this point know nothing of Othello that is gained by their own opinion, instead we are lead to believe from Iago’s race related description that Othello is a threatening and evil moor, whose beastial sexual appetite, conveyed by Iago’s cries to Brabantio, telling him that ‘an old black ram is tupping’ his ‘white ewe’ (1.1.89), is something of a rapist. Iago’s coarse animal related language conveys Iago’s feelings against Othello’s marriage in a much more pronounced way. The image of an ‘old black ram’ gives the audience nothing but negative images of Othello, especially when this ‘old black ram’ is being associated with the innocence of a ‘white ewe’. Iago then associates Othello with the image of ‘the devil’ (1.1.92) because of Othello’s colour, Iago warns Brabantio that he has ‘lost half [his] soul’ now that Desdemona is married to Othello. Iago here emphasises the biracial nature of the marriage, already showing his ability to manipulate people, in this case he is manipulating Brabantio, to believe in Iago’s own opinions and in theory to eliminate all thoughts that Brabantio might of had of his own about the marriage.
At the beginning of the play, the audience is made aware that Othello is a Moor working in the service of Venice. During the time the play was written, racism was strong. Despite Othello’s carefully built up life in which he managed to rise from being very poor to a powerful general, he still experienced racism from characters such as Roderigo and Brabantio. In Act One Scene One, Brabantio is appalled at the idea of his delicate daughter Desdemona secretly marrying a black man without his consent. He openly insults Othello, oblivious to Othello’s power: “That thou hast practiced on her with foul charms, Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals.” Brabantio is accusing Othello of witchcraft and trickery, and suggesting that no one could ever love him without the influence of his evil witchcraft. The audience feels pity for Othello because they know that Othello loves Desdemona and that he is a kind man, and is receiving these insults because of his race. The audience realises that he is already at a ...
In the tragedy Othello, Shakespeare creates a mood that challenges the way a person sees his or her self and the world. Subjects like racism, sexism, love, hate, jealously, pride, and trickery are thoroughly developed in the play of Othello to enable the audience to view the characters and also themselves. The Shakespearean tragedy of Othello was written in a time of great racial tensions in England. According to Eldred Jones, in 1600 just three years before Othello was written, Queen Elizabeth proclaimed an Edict for the Transportation of all "negars and blackmoores" out of the country ("Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays 39). It is in this atmosphere that Shakespeare began the masterpiece of Othello, a drama about a noble black Arab general, Othello, who falls in love with and marries, Desdemona, a young white daughter of a senator. From the above knowledge one may conclude that Shakespeare wrote Othello to express that all people, of all ethnicity, are basically the same in human nature. Shakespeare borrowed the idea of Othello from an Italian love story by Giraldi Cinthio. However, Shakespeare focuses more on the differences in color and age between Othello and Desdemona than Cinthio. Shakespeare does this to escalate Othello’s isolation from the rest of Venetian society and to display Othello’s vulnerability due to his color. In the tragedy not only is Othello susceptible to weaknesses but so is every major character . The tragedy reminds humans that even one’s good nature can be taken advantage of for the worse. The drama Othello expresses, through relationships and emotional attitudes, a theme that all humans are vulnerable to destruction even if they are in positions of power and glory.
Iago has been excellent at saying the what is needed to get to people, he misleads them to get a reaction he wants out of them. He is clever with his words to avoid confrontation that can easily happen. “Othello 's confusion is the human experience of language. In other words, language itself, not the outside world, determines meaning” (Christofides 2). Iago uses his words against Othello to get him to do Iago’s doings. Iago has an eloquence with