Othello - Values And Attitudes :: essays research papers

"If Othello didnt begin as a play about race, history has made it one."The Venetian society that Othello is posture in is representative of the writers context. The attitudes and set that Shakespeare reveals through the text are those kindred attitudes and value of Elizabethan society in England in the sixteenth-century. Although Othello is set in Venice and Cyprus, the attitudes and values shared in the text are probably broody of the attitudes and values of Shakespeares own society. It is difficult to assess the attitudes and values of people in sixteenth-century Britain to the relatively few blacks living amongst them. We are given an insight into those attitudes and values through the representation of race and gender in the text of Othello.These attitudes and values are indicative of what a culture believes in and supports. By the prison term Othello was written the English were becoming more and more aware of the reality of other races in the world besides themse lves.There had been a nap of travelling and blacks were beginning to be used in Europe for the buckle down trade. During the time the play was written, the Queen of England had banned all blacks from entering the city. She wheel spoke of them as "Negars and Moors which are crept into the realm, of which kind of people there are already here too many". It seems that Shakespeare is almost mocking the Queen by characterising Othello as a black man who has a high rank position in the Army and who marries a white aristocratic women, against her fathers will. poignancy Cowlig suggests that the presentation of Othello as the hero must have been startling for Elizabethan audiences. This may have been the case, but through the representation of Othello we are capable to see that some members of society such(prenominal) as the Duke, looked over his colorise to assign him his position whereas, others such as Iago, look on his discolor as a way to mock him.Hostility is shown to Oth ello by characters such as Iago and Roderigo. This attitude may have been encouraged by the general belief in the legend that blacks were descendants of Ham in the multiplication story, punished for sexual excess by their blackness.The Elizabethans discussed at length whether this scrape up colour was due to life in a hot temper or whether it was a punishment for sin.To the Elizabethans, who thought hierarchically, fair skin was the summary of beauty and therefore dark skin ranked below it.