Othello in Shakespeare\'s Tragedy Othello,

Othello

In Shakespeare's tragedy Othello, Brabantio strongly protests the marriage of his daughter Desdemona with the Moorish general Othello. Brabantio accuses Othello of using black magic to seduce her daughter, for he does not believe that Desdemona would fall in love with a Moore. Brabantio respects Othello as a military leader, but disapproves the marriage between him and Desdemona. There are several reasons for that. Brabantio is angry that his daughter and Othello eloped secretly, without his approval. Four hundred years ago, daughters were supposed to be absolutely obedient to their fathers who were entitled to choose their daughter's future husbands, and Desdemona violated that rule. Brabantio also questions Othello's Christianness although Shakespeare depicts Othello as a Christian man. Brabantio equates Othello with the Turk when he says "So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile, / We lose it not so long as we can smile" (1.3.208-9), and then with pagans when Brabantio warns that if Othello's stealing of Desdemona "may have passage free, / Bondslaves and pagans shall our statesmen be" (1.2.98-99). It is clear from this passage that Brabantio views Othello's background as a slave with disdain.

The main reason for Brabantio's opposition to his daughter's marriage to Othello seems to be Othello's color. It is Othello's blackness that Iago appeals to when he tries to "awaken" Brabantio. Iago equates miscegenation with losing one's soul and the black color with the devil. "Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul," Iago says. "Even now, very now, an old black ram, / Is topping your white ewe." "Arise, arise!" Iago also warns, " Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, / or else the devil will make a grandsire of you" (1.1.9-12). Brabantio also refers to Othello's color when he alludes that miscegenation is against nature. "She- in spite of nature," Brabantio laments, "Of years, of country, credit, everything- / to fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!" (1.3.4-6). It is because Brabantio does not believe that Desdemona, a white Venetian, could fall in love with a black man that he insists Othello must have used magic spells to win the heart of his daughter. Without magic, Brabantio argues, Desdemona would not have chosen "So opposite to marriage that she shunned" and would not "Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom, / of such a thing as thou -- to fear, not to delight" (1.2.66-70).

Iago and Brabantio's attitudes toward people of color were very much in line with popular Elizabethan views of black people during Shakespeare's time. This is, for example, evident from Duke of Venice's attempt to defend Othello. "If virtue no delighted beauty lack," the Duke tells Brabantio, "Your son-in-law is far more fair than black" (1.3.22). While arguing that Othello is virtuous and "fair," the Duke is suggesting that blackness has negative connotations. European attitude toward blacks is also evident from the fact that Othello eventually ends up internalizing negative connotations attached to black people. For example, learning upon Desdemona's "cheating," Othello says: "My name, that was as fresh, / as Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black, / as mine own face" (3.3.54). Diane's is the goddess of the pale moon, and Othello equates his former reputation with Diane, but then says that Desdemona's "cheating" rendered his reputation "begrimed and black" just like Othello's "own face." Othello makes more statements like these, resembling himself to a "base Indian" after learning that he wrongly killed Desdemona since she was innocent. This is an important theme since Iago is although an evil man, his racist description of Othello turns out to be true by the end of the third act -- something acknowledged by Othello himself.