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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An 8 page paper which examines how Shakespeare handles the subject of race in this tragedy. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGothrac.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
question, "What does it mean to be a black Moor in a white European society?" (Nostbakken 60) For neither Othello nor his audience, answers do not come easily or
conclusively. Race is still a prickly social issue and continues to incite rage and violence. The same was true in Shakespeares time, and the Bard incorporated what were
"common racial assumptions" into his plot structure in order to perhaps gain some insight into the human condition and possibly expose the root of its inherent prejudice (Nostbakken 62).
In Elizabethan England as well as Venice, Italy during the Renaissance, man and society were viewed exclusively in black and white terms. Europe was little more than an exclusive
club of Caucasian aristocrats, and anyone who was different was automatically dismissed as inferior, and therefore, need not apply for social membership. Such was the case of Othello, the
heroic military commander who had been commissioned by the Venetian elite to protect their territory, which he had admirably. He had apparently hailed from royal lineage, but his birthplace
was Morocco, which is located in northern Africa. Critic Faith Nostbakken observed in her assessment of Othello, "Africa, according to European perception and myth, was a place characterized by
both barbarianism and exoticism, inhabited by wild beasts and by people with enviable riches and strange customs" (62). This explains much about how Othello is treated by the Venetians,
as a kind of exotic or primitive oddity more than as a civilized man. Race is at the core of every interpretation of Othello, which is evident in the
ongoing debate as to whether his identification as a Moor means he is Arab or African (Bent 315). There is a major difference, for Arab has a bit less
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