Othello - Values And Attitudes :: essays research papers

"If Othello didnt begin as a take on about race, history has made it one."The Venetian society that Othello is set in is representative of the writers context. The attitudes and determine that Shakespe are reveals finished the text are those same attitudes and determine of Elizabethan society in England in the sixteenth-century. Although Othello is set in Venice and Cyprus, the attitudes and set shared in the text are probably reflective 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 re video display 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 succession Othello was written the English were becoming more and more aware of the existence of some other races in the world besides themselves.T here had been a lot of travelling and blacks were beginning to be used in Europe for the slave trade. During the time the play was written, the Queen of England had banned all blacks from entering the city. She 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 square upms that Shakespeare is almost mocking the Queen by characterising Othello as a black man who has a high ranking military posture in the Army and who marries a white aristocratic women, against her fathers will.Ruth Cowlig suggests that the presentation of Othello as the hero must have been startling for Elizabethan audiences. This whitethorn have been the case, but through the representation of Othello we are able to see that some members of society such as the Duke, looked over his burnish to accord him his position whereas, others such as Iago, look on his colour as a way to mock him.Hostility is sho wn to Othello by characters such as Iago and Roderigo. This attitude may have been encouraged by the widespread touch in the legend that blacks were descendants of Ham in the Genesis story, punish for sexual excess by their blackness.The Elizabethans discussed at length whether this skin colour was due to life in a hot climate or whether it was a punishment for sin.To the Elizabethans, who thought hierarchically, fair skin was the epitome of cup of tea and therefore dark skin ranked below it.