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Othello is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies
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However, his life and marriage are ruined by the villain, Iago
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Therefore, his blackness becomes a controversial topic that is still
debated in our times, and influences the interpretation of the tragedy in the stage and the study
(Neil, 2005, p
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In the pages that follow, it will be argued that the interpretation of Othello’s
blackness is affected by the racist and imperialist attitude of the critics
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Moreover, it will be shown that Iago’s opening stirs
up the ethnical tension
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According to Campbell (2011), the racist and imperialist attitude of the critics have
affected their interpretation of Othello (p
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This is clearly shown in Michael Neil’s (2005)
article Othello and Race, where he gives critical and performance histories of Othello
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Jackson mentions the
effects of the murder scene, however, he does not make any racial remark about the murderer
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However, by the end of the seventeenth century, Thomas Rymer
derisively attacked the union of Othello and Desdemona
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Neil reasons
that Raymer’s attitude towards African is connected to British involvement in the slave trade
which rapidly accelerated at the end of seventeenth century
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Later in the nineteenth century, the performance of the African
American actor as Othello, was interpreted as a voice to people oppressed by slavery (p
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This explains why Coleridge’s statement that Othello is never meant to be a Negro
(Campbell, 2011, p
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Neil (2005) claims that as a result
of this “destructive tradition”, another Othello is produced at the stage to soothe the racial
tension
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He adds, the interpretations resulted from the new perspective make
culture rather than race central to the tragedy of Othello
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40)
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Ogude who is a black critic claims that Othello is “an
undisguised expression of racism” (as cited in Campbell, 2015, p
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On the other hand, the
reading of the paly, as a tragedy of culture conflicts, influences many critics, such as E
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40)
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10)
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The
protagonist is not called by his name; he is “the Moor” (line 39, 115, 124, 145, 162, 175), and
“the thicklips” (65)
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1
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37-38)
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40)
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Iago establishes racist language by using a motif of animal imagery
to “demeans African in relation to Whites”
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Then he says that these are making a “beast” (p
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Iago’s ideas influence Brabantio
who says that it is “against all rules of nature” (1
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6) for his daughter to “the sooty bosom”
(1
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70)
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13)
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Iago becomes the “councilor and cultural guide” to Othello as he convinces him
that “[he knows] about [their] country disposition well” (3
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201) and its relation with nonVenetians
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He says
that it is “very nature” to Desdemona to loathe Othello and love somebody else and “Not to
affect many proposed matches/ Of her own clime, complexion, and degree/ Whereto we see in

all things nature tends—/… one may smell in such a will most rank,/Foul disproportion thoughts
unnatural” (3
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277-233)
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This is clearly shown in Othello’s speech when he is convinced of
Desdemona’s infidelity
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3
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14-16)
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16)
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(2011)
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International Journal
of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES), 12, 9-24
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(2005)
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In P
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Hunt (Eds)
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37-52)
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