Othello Race Quotes

Not everyone in Venice shares Brabantio's views of Othello. The Senators and the Duke obviously admire Othello, who is a celebrated and honorable military leader. Here, the Duke defends Othello against Brabantio's accusations that Othello used "magic" on Desdemona. On the one hand, we can read the Duke's assertion that Othello is virtuous and "fair" as a compliment. On the other hand, the Duke's words are also troubling because the compliment to Othello hinges on the idea that blackness has negative connotations. Ultimately, the Duke implies that Othello is "fair" despite the fact that he is black. This suggests that Othello is the exception to the rule.

Here, Othello explains to the Duke and the Senate how Desdemona fell for him – when Brabantio would invite Othello to tell stories about his past, Desdemona paid serious attention and fell in love. This passage is significant for a couple of reasons. First, it reveals that Brabantio "loved" Othello, so long as Othello was a military hero defending Venice and not in a romantic relationship with his, Brabantio's, daughter. Here's what actor Paul Robeson (the black American actor who broke the color barrier when he played Othello on Broadway in 1943) had to say about the play:

"In the Venice of that time [Othello] was in practically the same position as a coloured man in America today [1930]. He was a general, and while he could be valuable as a fighter he was tolerated, just as a n***o who could save New York from a disaster would become a great man overnight. So soon, however, as Othello wanted a white woman, Desdemona, everything was changed, just as New York would be indignant if their coloured man married a white woman." (Source: "My Fight for Fame. How Shakespeare Paved My Way to Stardom." Pearson's Weekly, April 5, 1930, p 100.)

We're also interested in the significance of how Othello's stories about travel, adventure, and even his enslavement lend Othello a romantic and exotic quality that appealed to Desdemona (and others who listened). Despite the way Othello's stories lend him an exotic air, some scholars have pointed out that this passage sounds a lot like some stories that were written by white European travelers. (As we know, Shakespeare lived in an age of exploration, when the English were enthralled with stories about encounters with new people and cultures. Check out, for example, The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, compiled in the fourteenth century but reprinted in 1582.) Othello, then, seems to present himself here as, well, a white European traveler, one who has encountered (and lived to tell about) primitive "cannibals" and "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." Why does Othello do this? Is he trying to distance himself from the kinds of racist stereotypes sixteenth century Europeans assigned to foreigners and black men (savage, animalistic, etc.)?

We also want to point out how the tragedy of Othello is that, by play's end, Othello ends up fulfilling a racist stereotype (that black men are savage murderers) when he kills his white wife in her bed. In other words, Othello ends up becoming not unlike the murdering exotics he talks about in his adventure stories. So, what's going on here? Does this mean the play is racist? Or, was Shakespeare trying to provoke his sixteenth-century audiences into (re)thinking their ideas about racial identity?

Iago suggests that there's something "unnatural" and "rank" about Desdemona if she would decide to marry a black man instead of a man who is of "her own clime, complexion, and degree" (a.k.a. a European man, especially a man from Venice). The word "rank" has serious sexual connotations for Shakespeare – it implies a kind of festering and rot associated with sexually transmitted disease. So, Iago is implying that Desdemona's sexual desire for Othello not only makes her "unnatural," but also suggests that she's promiscuous and corrupt – the kind of girl who might have an STD. (Compare Iago's words here to Hamlet's obsession with his mother's "rank" marriage bed by checking out our discussion of "Symbols" in Hamlet.)

We also want to point out that Iago isn't just playing on Othello's fears about his wife's sexuality. Iago also plays on Othello's fears about his status as a black Moor. Iago says Desdemona will eventually change her mind or "repent" for being with him, leaving Othello for a white man instead. Notice Othello doesn't disagree with any of this. It seems Othello's already beginning to believe that Desdemona is or will be unfaithful to him because 1) she's promiscuous and 2) Othello is a black man, and therefore not good enough for Desdemona. None of what Iago has to say is true. So why is Othello so easily manipulated by Iago? Is it because Iago tells him what he already suspects to be true? If so, does this mean that Othello is a victim of society's racist ideologies?